The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Asperger’s syndrome

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Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, H. (2012). The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Disability & Society, 27(2), 235-247. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2011.644933

Publication date: 16 Feb 2012 Added to AutiHub: 4 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. Hannah Bertilsdotter Rosqvist *

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger's syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting of the research is ethnographic fieldwork in an educational setting in Sweden. In the paper, I show the use of three storylines among a natural group of people with autism (PWA) when talking about humour: the storyline of humourless PWA that dominates within Swedish society; and two alternatives, a storyline of alternative humour among PWA and another storyline in line with the social model of disability, of neurotypical humour or disabling humour. When invoking these two alternative storylines, PWA challenge both the humourlessness storyline and the lack of social accessibility within mainstream neurotypical settings. Keywords: jokingneurotypical humourAsperger humourAsperger's syndromesocial accessibilitydisability humourdisabling humour Notes 1. For a brief introduction, see Joyce Davidson's 'Workshop Objectives' at the Critical Autism Studies 2010 Workshop. http://www.joycedavidson.com/criticalautismstudies/?page_id=2 (accessed 7 December 2010). See also Silverman (Citation2008) for an overview of the closely related 'social studies of autism'. 2. A Folk High School is a type of school for adults, common in the Nordic countries. 3. This year there was an unusually high percentage of female students. Previous cohorts were dominated by male students, which is more in line with the common gender distribution among PWA. 4. 'Systemet' (the System) is slang for Systembolaget, the Swedish state-run company that has a monopoly on the legal sale of alcohol in Sweden.

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These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 2 Oct 2026 01:00.

Cited references
39
With a DOI
31
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
6
1 / 39 (2.6%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 39 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
39 / 39 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
4
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
60
From DOI or external metadata
60
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
12 / 60 (20.0%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 48 / 60 (80.0%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
1 / 60 (1.7%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 1 / 12 (8.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 1 / 53 (1.9%).
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