IAS 'On Laughter': So much more than funny - Laughter and difference in central Australia

Conducting participant observation-based research with Warlpiri people in the camps of Yuendumu, an Aboriginal settlement in central Australia, provided me with daily reminders that “laughter is a human universal and what people laugh about is not”. It also taught me that the fact that other people laugh when I don’t (or, vice versa) is only the most trivial difference writ in laughter. And so, rather than focussing on Warlpiri humour in order to ‘understand’ Warlpiri laughter, in this presentation I emphasise radical difference. Approaching laughter as both a somatic and a social experience, I explore in ethnographic depth:

1. How Warlpiri people understand laughter somatically, by looking at laughter and weakness;
2. How Warlpiri people understand their own laughter and that of others as potentially dangerous, or, the connection they make between laughter and fear; and
3. How Warlpiri people socially recognise laughter as an appropriate response to unfunny events.

To sharpen my point about radical difference, in a final example, I return to a case study where Indigenous and non-Indigenous laughters co-mingle. I conclude by pondering how laughter is one lens through which to reflect about the state and shape of contemporary settler/colonial relations in central Australia.

This keynote talk is part of the conference 'On Laughter'. Please download the full programme here.