Trapped in the abject: prison officers’ use of avoidance, compliance and retaliation in response to ambiguous humour

IF 1.2 4区管理学 Q4 MANAGEMENT

Culture and Organization Pub Date : 2022-10-27 DOI:10.1080/14759551.2022.2139378

C. Manolchev, A. Einarsdóttir, Delano Lewis, H. Hoel

引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT The place of humour in organisational interactions has been the subject of long-standing interest. Studies have considered the positive role of humour in increasing social contact and promoting group cohesion, while warning it can be a means for expressing hostility and excluding group members. However, more ambiguous uses of humour remain underexplored and under-theorised. Using a single case study of employee experiences at ‘Hillside’, a high-security prison in the UK, we address this gap. Adopting Julia Kristeva’s ‘theory of the abject’, we conceptualise ‘abject humour’ as a disruptive activity, which is composite, shady and sinister. We show that, despite Hillside’s adoption of Challenge It, Change It as a UK-wide safeguarding policy, the liminal spaces abject humour opens and occupies, are difficult to regulate. Those spaces trap both perpetrators and targets, and necessitate the use of avoidance, compliance, and retaliation strategies by the latter, as ways of coping.

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陷入困境：监狱官员对模棱两可的幽默使用回避、顺从和报复

幽默在组织互动中的地位一直是人们感兴趣的话题。研究认为幽默在增加社会接触和促进群体凝聚力方面发挥着积极作用，同时警告说，幽默可能是表达敌意和排斥群体成员的一种手段。然而，幽默的更多模糊用法仍然没有得到充分的探索和理论化。通过对英国高安全级别监狱“Hillside”员工经历的单一案例研究，我们解决了这一差距。采用Julia Kristeva的“卑鄙理论”，我们将“卑鄙幽默”概念化为一种破坏性活动，它是复合的、阴暗的和阴险的。我们表明，尽管Hillside采用了“挑战它，改变它”作为全英国的保护政策，但卑鄙幽默打开并占据的边缘空间很难监管。这些空间既困住了犯罪者，也困住了目标，因此后者必须使用回避、遵守和报复策略作为应对方式。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Culture and Organization MANAGEMENT-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Culture and Organization was founded in 1995 as Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies . It represents the intersection of academic disciplines that have developed distinct qualitative, empirical and theoretical vocabularies to research organization, culture and related social phenomena. Culture and Organization features refereed articles that offer innovative insights and provoke discussion. It particularly offers papers which employ ethnographic, critical and interpretive approaches, as practised in such disciplines as organizational, communication, media and cultural studies, which go beyond description and use data to advance theoretical reflection. The Journal also presents papers which advance our conceptual understanding of organizational phenomena. Culture and Organization features refereed articles that offer innovative insights and provoke discussion. It particularly offers papers which employ ethnographic, critical and interpretive approaches, as practised in such disciplines as communication, media and cultural studies, which go beyond description and use data to advance theoretical reflection. The journal also presents papers which advance our conceptual understand-ing of organizational phenomena.