Carter, A. orcid.org/0000-0001-6942-8687 and Davies, K. (2024) Laughing through Brexit: Family humour practices, political troubles and everyday life. Current Sociology. ISSN 0011-3921
Abstract
Humour has a well-established role in the public life of politics, however its use within families affected by macro-level political events remains understudied. This article explores how families employed humour to navigate family troubles introduced by Brexit, the UK’s tumultuous exit from the European Union. Through an ethnographic study, we demonstrate how extraordinary political times test the positive relational potentials of humour. Families reframed situations through ‘playfulness’, exercised gentle and well-timed teasing, and digitally shared Brexit-related comedy objects to alleviate stresses and anxieties. However, the intensity of the Brexit drama rendered some family humour practices futile, and in particular circumstances, humour became an additional burden. By examining the interrelations of political events, everyday family practices and humour, this article demonstrates the integral role of humour in the reconstitution of familial relationships, the importance of craft and relational and situational contexts, to the successful deployment of humour.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages. |
Keywords: | Brexit; family; humour; everyday life; ethnography |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Sociological Studies (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/S006362/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 02 Aug 2024 16:56 |
Last Modified: | 16 Sep 2024 08:46 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/00113921241275684 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:215331 |