Politico-Pedagogical Functions of Humour in South Asia

Authors

  • Ravi Kumar South Asian University
  • Rama Paul Delhi University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v16i3.186950

Keywords:

Humour and politics, Critical Pedagogy, Performance and Humour, Politics of performance, Humour as Pedagogy

Abstract

Humour as a performance has been studied at length from the prism of its relationship to politics. However, there are fewer works that looks at humour as pedagogy. Pedagogy includes every aspect of an individual as embedded in a socio-economic and political order. This embeddedness brings an individual face to face with diverse sources from which it learns. The paper argues that humour in its different avatars fulfils the purpose of teaching-learning in the same way as any other pedagogical tool. By acting as such it ensures its role as working for the status quo as well as for the anti-status quoists. Humour then ceases to be a mundane experience without any relevance but becomes one of the most sources of consensualisation as well as rebellion in contemporary times.

Author Biographies

Ravi Kumar, South Asian University

Ravi Kumar teaches Sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi.  His areas of specialisation include politics of knowledge production, social movements, social theory in general and Marxism in particular, political economy of identity formation and South Asian studies. His works include [2023] Contemporary Readings in Marxism: A Critical Introduction; [2022] The New Republic: Populism, Power and the Trajectories of Indian Democracy; [2020] Organising Against Capitalism: Remembering Rosa Luxemburg; [2019]  Neoliberalism, Critical Pedagogy and Education. He co-edits book series titled Social Movements, Dissent and Transformative Action (Routledge: Delhi).

Rama Paul, Delhi University

Rama Paul teaches at Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi. She has studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and University of Salamanca, Spain.  Her works include 'La poesía escrita por mujeres hispanoamericanos en el siglo XX' (Co-authored, 2007, JNU) and translations of sociological texts on Argentinian crisis, latin American literature, and literature produced in times of fascism . Her areas of specialisation are Gender, social movements and literature in the Hispanic world.

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Published

2025-08-15

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 3 (2025)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Ravi Kumar, Rama Paul

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