Description
Conducting research in conflict-affected societies is never a straightforward endeavour. It requires the researcher to develop certain sensibilities and awareness of dynamics beyond the spoken and the obvious. In understanding how the current social and political circumstances shape the domain of what can and cannot be publicly discussed in a society affected by a conflict, researchers have argued that the so-called ‘hidden transcripts’ or ‘metadata’ of rumours, inventions, denials, evasions, and silences present a valuable repository of people’s thoughts and feelings that are not always articulated in interview responses. This paper argues that jokes often present a critical form of meta-data and thus explores the place of humour in peace research. It particularly zeroes in on three different functions of humour in conflict-affected societies: as a coping mechanism, as a resistance tactic, and as a myth-making domain. Drawing on research undertaken in the Balkans, the paper sheds light on the importance of humour not only as part of the context, but also as part of the data itself.
