TY - JOUR
T1 - New European tricksters
T2 - Polish jokes in the context of European Union labour migration
AU - Weaver, Simon
AU - Ozieranski, Piotr
PY - 2016/9
Y1 - 2016/9
N2 - In the context of contemporary European labour migration, where the most publicised pattern of labour migration sees Eastern European migrants move West, the dominant scholarly interpretation of Polish jokes is not applicable for the analysis of much of the joking by or about the Poles. Humour scholars frequently categorise jokes about ethnic groups into stupid or canny categories, and the Poles have been the butt of stupidity (‘Polack’) jokes in Europe and the United States. Today, in the European Union, Polish stupidity stereotyping in humour is less active and the Polish immigrant is hard working and a threat to indigenous labour, yet joking does not depict this threat in a canny Pole. The article applies the liminal concept of the trickster – an ambiguous border crosser or traveller – to elaborate some of the characteristics of jokes told by and about Polish migrants in the EU, mainly in the British context. A more robust explanatory framework is thus offered than is currently available in humour studies.
AB - In the context of contemporary European labour migration, where the most publicised pattern of labour migration sees Eastern European migrants move West, the dominant scholarly interpretation of Polish jokes is not applicable for the analysis of much of the joking by or about the Poles. Humour scholars frequently categorise jokes about ethnic groups into stupid or canny categories, and the Poles have been the butt of stupidity (‘Polack’) jokes in Europe and the United States. Today, in the European Union, Polish stupidity stereotyping in humour is less active and the Polish immigrant is hard working and a threat to indigenous labour, yet joking does not depict this threat in a canny Pole. The article applies the liminal concept of the trickster – an ambiguous border crosser or traveller – to elaborate some of the characteristics of jokes told by and about Polish migrants in the EU, mainly in the British context. A more robust explanatory framework is thus offered than is currently available in humour studies.
UR - http://ics.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/16/1367877915595482
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367877915595482
U2 - 10.1177/1367877915595482
DO - 10.1177/1367877915595482
M3 - Article
SN - 1367-8779
VL - 19
SP - 577
EP - 591
JO - International Journal of Cultural Studies
JF - International Journal of Cultural Studies
IS - 5
ER -