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Disability & Society

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The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Aspergers syndrome
Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist
a a

Department of Sociology & Ume Centre for Gender Studies, Ume University, Ume, Sweden Available online: 16 Feb 2012

To cite this article: Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist (2012): The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Aspergers syndrome, Disability & Society, 27:2, 235-247 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2011.644933

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Disability & Society Vol. 27, No. 2, March 2012, 235247

The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Aspergers syndrome
Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist*
Department of Sociology & Ume Centre for Gender Studies, Ume University, Ume, Sweden

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(Received 7 September 2010; nal version received 4 December 2010) The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Aspergers 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 eldwork 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: joking; neurotypical humour; Asperger humour; Aspergers syndrome; social accessibility; disability humour; disabling humour

Points of interest  Research on autism and humour usually views people with autism (PWA) either as lacking a sense of humour or as having an alternative kind of humour.  Two kinds of humour are stressed within disability studies: disabling humour and disability humour.  This study reveals examples of PWA challenging both the view of PWA as humourless and expressions of disabling humour within neurotypical environments. These challenges were made via talking about the alternative humour of PWA as well as focusing on how different environments are made socially inaccessible to PWA.  Being able to make jokes and be part of a humorous environment, rather than being excluded from it or even being an object of ridicule, is an expression of how socially accessible or inaccessible an environment is, rather than the result of essential differences when it comes to humour among neurotypicals and PWA.
*Email: Hanna.Bertilsdotter@soc.umu.se
ISSN 0968-7599 print/ISSN 1360-0508 online 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2011.644933 http://www.tandfonline.com

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 The research recommended critical perspectives on the meaning of social accessibility for PWA. Introduction Humour can be understood as an important tool in social interaction; as something that not only supports relationships but also indirectly communicates views that cannot be expressed openly (see, for example, Lyons and Fitzgerald 2004; Samson and Hegenloh 2010). Humour is also recurrently linked with notions of a universal human ability or human life (see, for example, Lyons and Fitzgerald 2004). Stuart Murray (2006) argues from his analyses of cultural representations of autism that autism is repeatedly used to represent the inhuman, or that which lies beyond or outside the human. One expression of this is the existence of several studies that revolve around humour among people with autism (PWA), focusing on humour processing decits and based on the assumption that PWA have difculty with social interaction (see, for example, Lyons and Fitzgerald 2004; Samson and Hegenloh 2010). Understanding and appreciating humorous stimuli requires several cognitive abilities that PWA are presumed to lack, such as an abstract understanding of ideas and the ability to integrate information into a new concept (Samson and Hegenloh 2010). Within research on autism and humour, there are essentially two different storylines (see Jones 2002) or interpretative repertoires (see Edley and Wetherell 1999), both of which construct PWA as essentially different or other to neurotypicals (NTs). The rst, most frequently used in the early studies on autism, is the storyline of PWA as humourless. According to this, PWA are construed to be people who can neither understand humour (see Wing 1996), nor laugh at themselves, nor attain that particular wisdom and deep intuitive human understanding that underlie genuine humor (Frith 1991, 82). The second, which is more prominent in later studies, is the storyline of an alternative kind of humour. According to this, PWA are described as people whose detail-oriented processing style sometimes leads to their not getting the joke (Samson and Hegenloh 2010). In addition, the humour of PWA is emphasized in line with McGhees (1979) work on humour as being age-inappropriate, and an expression of a developmentally-related insufciency (see Van Bourgondien and Mesibov 1987; Reddy, Williams, and Vaughan 2002; Lyons and Fitzgerald 2004). Finally, this storyline makes prominent the occurrence of certain forms of humour among PWA, such as wordplay of various types (see, for example, Werth, Perkins, and Boucher 2001; see also Samson and Hegenloh 2010). There are also two broad storylines about humour within disability studies. The rst is related to the alternative storyline of autism and humour; the storyline of disability humour (cf. Albrecht 1999; Shakespeare 1999; Reid, Stoughton, and Smith 2006). As expressed by Reid, Stoughton, and Smith (2006, 631), disability humour is any humor that centers disability or is offered by disabled persons. There is a certain ambivalence to this storyline; it can be seen both as something that may involve black humour and as something that at the same time is liberating. It can contribute to group solidarity, make the value system visible, contextualize experiences and ease everyday difculties, and make visible the boundaries between cultural groups as well as the social glue that holds them together (Albrecht 1999; see also Shakespeare 1999). The second storyline is a

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socially critical storyline, in line with the social model of disability (cf. Oliver 1990), which covers humour that is disabling or denigrating (Reid, Stoughton, and Smith 2006). Expressions of this include talk about people with disabilities as objects of laughter and ridicule among able-bodied people or normates (Garland-Thomson 1997). The aim of this article is to analyse how humour and talk about humour are used in a group of PWAs in an educational setting. Combining insights from discursive psychology, the emerging eld of critical autism studies,1 and works on humour within disability studies, I will bring out and make visible humour among PWA in and of itself. At the same time I will highlight how PWA are challenging the dominant cultural storyline (cf. Jones 2002) of PWA as humourless, which in practice is a storyline that paints PWA as Human Others and NTs as Humans (cf. Murray 2006, 2008), while using two alternative storylines or counter-narratives (cf. Jones 2002). The rst alternative storyline is based on two other storylines, mentioned above in the contexts of research on autism and humour and disability studies, respectively; the storyline of PWA as having an alternative kind of humour, and the storyline of disability humour. These storylines are here combined into one storyline, the alternative humour storyline. The second alternative storyline, the socially critical storyline of disabling humour or NT humour, will be referred to as the socially critical storyline. Methodology Ethnographic tools were used in order to study identity constructions, autistic communication, and social interaction in a natural setting. The methodological framework is described below. Community selection A number of the Folk High Schools2 in Sweden provide educational programmes aimed at people aged over 18 who have been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome (AS). These may be general education courses leading to the equivalent of an upper secondary school certicate or supplementing earlier studies, or training courses oriented to an occupation or working life. A one-year occupational training course was selected from among these programmes. Study population One class was selected, consisting of 10 students aged 2050. Seven were women and three were men,3 and all were white. In addition to the students, the class included two female assistants with an AS diagnosis (Helena and Johanna) and two female teachers (special educators) without a diagnosis. The study focused on the students and the assistants; in the remainder of this article, the term the group should be taken to mean both students and assistants. Most of the people in the group had received their diagnosis as adults. Most participated regularly in social and political activities, both online and ofine, organized by and for people with AS or people with high-functioning autism. The group saw each other several days a week over a period of several months, and in some cases outside school hours as well.

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Research techniques Participatory observation I accompanied the students during the whole school day, two days a week, for a three-month period. During these observations I sat silently for the most part and took notes on various dialogues between students, assistants, and teachers, asking questions if there was something I did not understand. I also engaged in the informal conversations that took place, mainly during breaks. At the end of each day of observation, I wrote detailed eld notes focused on the dialogues from that days notes and my memory of the day. At the end of each such eld note, I wrote down analytic reections in which I reected on my own feelings and on the conversational themes. The information was processed thematically.
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Discussion groups I held three voluntary discussion group sessions, each including between four and six participants. In the rst group interview, only women took part; in the second, one man took part; and in the third, two men took part. Each session lasted about an hour and fteen minutes. The discussions were based on themes from my eld notes and analytic reections (see Sperry and Mesibov 2005). I was struck during the eldwork by how much joking and laughter there was in the group. Since joking was so central in the groups interactions with one another, I brought it up as a particular theme in the second and third group discussions (see also Robillard 1999). The discussions were tape-recorded, transcribed, and then processed thematically. Both group discussions and eld notes were analysed with rhetorical and psychological discourse analysis (Billig 1987/1993; Wetherell and Potter 1988; Edley and Wetherell 1999; Edley 2001). One important concept in this kind of analysis is the idea of interpretative repertoires, which can be interpreted as culturally available resources or storylines from which members from a specic society can both draw on and resist in order to produce their own accounts (Jones 2002, 2). Here, the group of interest consists of Swedish PWA who also frequently read about and take part in a general social discussion about autism, among social workers and other professionals, among parents, in the Swedish ofine media and on the Internet, and among other PWA in the online and ofine Swedish community for PWA. The sections of the text covering humour and joking were selected for detailed analysis. This was followed by a phase of reading and re-reading to distinguish patterns both in and between the parts, and formulating hypotheses about their functions. During this phase of reading and re-reading I constructed the three storylines; the dominating storyline of PWA as humourless, and the two alternative storylines of an alternative kind of humour (disability humour) and of disabling humour. Finally, the paper was translated into English.

Methodological reections My own experiences of people with AS were limited before this eldwork, and I did not have a diagnosis myself. The group were friendly, making me feel welcome and a part of the group. During the eldwork I constantly felt that I was in the process of learning a new language, and challenging points of view I had previously taken for granted. The eldwork gave me the opportunity to get a taste of this

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new language, and made me understand that there are many different ways of looking and sensing. Honesty about myself and openness about the research process were important parts of the research process. The eld notes were submitted to a virtual learning environment that could only be accessed by the students, the assistants, and the teachers; and all participants were given the opportunity to comment on the eld notes during the group discussions or in private to me. The transcripts from the discussion group sessions were emailed to the participants, and they were also given the opportunity to read and comment on the rst (pre-refereed) Swedish version of my written texts. The participants spoke of themselves by preference as Aspergers, for the purpose of emphasizing AS as an identity that they could be proud of, and expressing the feeling of being at home in a community of PWA. They considered AS to be an essential part of their personality, and so this term seemed more appropriate than people-rst language (see, for example, Conrad 1990; for a discussion see, for example, Brownlow 2010; Davidson and Henderson 2010). The word Aspergers is also the preferred term within the Swedish PWA self-advocacy movement, Organiserade Aspergare (which translates as Organized Aspergers). In the present article, when I refer more generally I use the short term PWA, but when I refer to the participants or the narratives used among them I use the participants own preferred terms. The most frequently used of these was Aspergers (Aspergare in Swedish), but where the participants referred to other concepts such as people with a diagnosis or we who are living with Aspergers, I have also used this wording. Findings The rst part of the ndings, regarding NT humour, focuses on how people in the group challenged the dominant storyline of PWA as humourless, while using both the alternative storyline of disability humour and the storyline of disabling humour. The second part focuses on the use of the alternative storyline in constructions of Asperger humour.

Neurotypical humour NT humour can be dened as humour among NT people, or humour on NT peoples terms. The participants repeatedly spoke about their humour in relation to NT humour and the storyline of PWA as humourless. One expression of this was the sharing of experiences of being the object of disrespectful joking and ridicule among NTs; the participants positioned themselves as being critically aware of this. Another expression of this aspect consisted of discussions about notions of how humour among NTs is supposed to be expressed, in order for NTs to regard it as a valid expression of humour. One of the assistants, Johanna, stated her opinion that NT people misunderstood PWA, and did not believe that we have a sense of humour, because they dont see us laughing. Another notion was the importance of laughing in the right place or in the right way. The other assistant, Helena, described how many PWA had difculty connecting their feelings to a particular behaviour, and emphasized how many children with autism were especially misunderstood because you laugh in the wrong place, but youre just expressing a feeling, but you dont know how its done. Several of the participants had had the

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experience of laughing in the wrong place, or the fear of not thinking that a joke other people were laughing at was funny. Another expression of laughing in the wrong place was the experience of sitting in an NT-dominated social situation and being the only one who was not laughing, only to understand several hours later, once at home, what it was that you were supposed to laugh at (Maria). Another experience, recounted by Eva, was laughing a lot longer than ordinary people. The participants also questioned the boundaries of humour; for example, the boundary between laughing or crying over a phenomenon, of being infected by laughter rather than laughing at a joke in and of itself. Finally, the implications and terms of understanding humour were challenged. Helena questioned the NT view of Aspergers as people who have difculty with irony by bringing up the ironic joking between her and Maria that was built on mutual understanding, the fact that they were on the same level (Maria). These discussions of laughing in the wrong place or way, of not keeping the boundaries between feelings, and of being able to understand irony when joking with other Aspergers, are all ways of challenging the humourlessness storyline. Using the alternative storyline, the participants argued that PWA may have a different way of experiencing and expressing humour, in comparison with NTs. At the same time, however, as shown by their discussion of the risk of being an object of joking among NTs, or in the illustrative case of ironic joking between Helena and Maria, humour could also be an indicator of how different spaces and social interactions may be differently socially accessible for PWA. Here I use the meaning of social accessibility in terms of the work of Simmons-Mackie and Damico (2007), rather than the work of Eviatar Zerubavel (1979). In Zerubavels conceptualization of social accessibility, the focus is on the meaning of regulating an individual persons involvements in social life. According to the denition of Simmons-Mackie and Damico (2007), developed as part of their work on people with aphasia, social accessibility refers to the extent of inclusion, participation, and communicative access in social environments. In a socially accessible (enabling) space, where there is a possibility for mutual understanding between the jokers, humour among PWA can be similar to humour among NTs (the socially critical storyline), and the NTs do not joke disrespectfully about PWA, thinking in line with the humourlessness storyline that the PWA are unable to get it. Asperger humour Talk about Asperger humour (i.e. what the participants themselves perceived as characteristic of humour, and of Asperger humour in general) and the participants own humour in particular can be seen as expressing the use of the alternative storyline, enabling a subjectivity as an (adult) Asperger that is often both different from and critically opposed to the subjectivity of an (adult) NT. When the participants spoke about their joking within the group, with each other, they stressed that the joking presupposed understanding. When the discussion went into what distinguishes Asperger humour from other types of humour, the participants gave three examples of its distinctive forms of expression. One expression of Asperger humour, which Johanna even characterized as this typical Asperger humour, was plays on words (Mikael) or these weird puns (Johanna) (cf. Van Bourgondien and Mesibov 1987; Werth, Perkins, and Boucher 2001).

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Asperger humour was also described as very childish (Michael). This childish humour, rst of all, was related to notions of chronological age. Helena, for example, described her own humour as something that could be on the level of a three-yearold. This could be seen as an expression of how the participants related to and negotiated with notions of humour as something dened in relation to NT-normative speech on the basis of different developmental stages linked to chronological age (see Van Bourgondien and Mesibov 1987). Second, childish humour could be seen as an expression of the courage to challenge, or a lack of interest in living up to, NT norms of development of adulthood and chronological age. One manifestation of this was expressed by Johanna as still having the child in you. This entailed, among other things, doing fun things that the participants viewed as contrary to norms of adulthood, such as swinging on a swing, playing hopscotch, not stepping on lines, skipping, and balancing. Johanna spoke about daring to challenge norms, stating that adult Aspergers dare to go skipping and that we dont feel this requirement that weve got to behave like adults. She described adult Aspergers as people who get it into their heads to go skipping off. Theres no barrier there so to speak, because you dont think about it or dont understand that youre not supposed to like it, that its fun. The third aspect of this childish humour was related to notions of difference between NTs and Aspergers: adult NTs and adult Aspergers do not necessarily agree over what is funny and what is not. Helena described how she might giggle at some leaf that looks funny. She also connected this type of humour to the capacity of Aspergers to see detail (see Samson and Hegenloh 2010):
. . . I mean these kinds of small details that other people on the whole dont see at all. And other Aspergers are . . . see the same things, they see the same details in words . . . (Helena)

A more ambivalent type of Asperger humour is what I have chosen to call Asperger jokes, a type of Asperger humour that Helena described as an expression of black humour (see Albrecht 1999; Shakespeare 1999). This covers various types of joking in which Aspergers make fun of and parody difculties and stereotypical characteristics among Aspergers; for example, jokes about individual Aspergers special interests. The participants both brought out the signicance of this type of joking and pointed out problems with it. As one expression of positive aspects, Mikael described joking about ones own disability as rst of all an expression of self-acceptance (see Reid, Stoughton, and Smith 2006); having accepted that one has AS, and being able to have that much distance. He described joking about AS in relation to a processual self-acceptance, where the rst step was being able to talk about it, and after that:
. . . the step long afterward is being able to joke about it almost, even, being able, like, able to be a little ironic after all. Not all the time, but still having a blend somewhere, sort of. And being able, yeah, to say yes, Im like this, like also tell this serious history, but then still have a playing down of the whole thing. (Mikael)

Secondly, Mikael described the joking as an expression of social acceptance; that what you can joke about is also accepted in the society. He considered that joking about certain prejudices that exist about autism and Aspergers was ultimately a way

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of picking off some of the prejudices (see, for example, Shakespeare 1999). In the same spirit, Johanna observed that:
. . . its pretty nice here to sort of be able to joke about with each other about their problems and so on. And I also think, like you [Mikael], that its a really good way of playing it down, joking about your problems. Then this NTer maybe dares to bring it up or talk about it. Then they understand that it isnt that sensitive. [Several people in the group conrmed this.]

At the same time, the participants described some tension about Asperger jokes in NT contexts, between the joke on the one hand as a means to reach out (Helena) with the aim of challenging prejudices, enlightening people, and providing knowledge about autism in NT contexts; and, on the other hand, the joke as a freak show, as an expression of deformity comedy (Helena). In the narratives of Asperger jokes as a means to reach out with knowledge in NT contexts, it was stressed that this means is conditional. First of all, the risks and limits of the joking were emphasized. Helena asked the rhetorical question: How funny is it supposed to be in order for those around us to take in [knowledge about autism]? By joking about autism as a PWA, one risks giving other people permission to joke about us, too (Helena). Secondly, the signicance of situation and position was considered (see Shakespeare 1999). For example, Helena emphasized the difference between three types of situations and positions, where the rst would be OK, the second OK sometimes, and the third never OK. The rst of these is when PWA joke about autism within the PWA group (see, for example, Reid, Stoughton, and Smith 2006); the second, when PWA joke about autism in front of a group of NT people; and the third, when NTs joke about PWA. Helena also stressed the difference between the use of humour in private situations as something one had to have in order to manage surviving if youre going through a lot of difculties, and the use of humour when one is appearing as a representative of the PWA group. Asperger joking was underlined as something that must happen on the PWAs own terms. The participants explained that joking about autism had to be something that one decided oneself, as a PWA, whether to do, and should not be something that is imposed on one by the NT environment. In line with this, Helena and Mikael discussed how people with diagnoses are used as entertainment and as individual witnesses, but not as people who have facts to put forward or who can be serious and professional. This upholds a distinction between professionals and laypeople. The professional is dened on the basis of their legitimacy to speak from universal or general knowledge, on the basis of facts possessed by professional people who work with people who have autism. The layperson (the PWA) is dened on the basis of their legitimacy to speak from an experience-based, particular knowledge, and by joking about themselves and autism. One aspect of Asperger humour where the critical perspective on NT norms became especially clear was the occurrence among the participants of what could be described as NT jokes. These NT jokes included both jokes about NTs and jokes about what Shakespeare (1999) and others have described as disabling encounters and environments (i.e. inaccessible social spaces and interactions). Based on Shakespeares (1999) discussion about different expressions of disability humour, this type of Asperger humour can be understood as something that contributes to undermining the taken-for-granted (NT) norms and making visible the (NT) social

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relations that constitute disablement as oppression. One illustration of this was Johannas narrative of greeting rituals.
Johanna: . . . And another thing too, I read, whats it called, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Ive read several of the books in English. And they are so incredibly funny. There was an old man they met. He had a towel, they had them on that planet. And then when the main character comes and meets him, he says, My name is such-and-such, and this is my towel. And then this main character didnt know what he was supposed to do, whether hes supposed to take hold of a bit of the edge like this (several laughs) and shake hands with it. And it was so funny, I just had to mark that place, and every person I met, it was: Look, look how funny! It was absolutely superb. But it was maybe . . . [inaudible]. Its pretty much how I feel, I feel pretty much like he does when I meet people: am I supposed to shake this . . .? Yes, no, actually it has nothing to do with Aspergers. But funny. Helena: Oh yes, it certainly does have to do with Aspergers.

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To summarize, the jokes that I call NT jokes are various types of jokes in which Aspergers make fun of and parody difculties and stereotypic characteristics among NT people. The principal expressions of NT jokes that I saw among the participants were parodies of different types of NT social interactions that become social barriers or disabling moments. One instance of this was NT greeting rituals, as in Johannas narrative above. Other expressions were related to the NT preferential right of interpretation with respect to knowledge; the participants jokingly made diagnoses of NT people, or of the Neurotypical Syndrome. This type of joke can also be seen in various Asperger communities and websites created for and by Aspergers (see also Bagatell 2007). The following quotation illustrates Aspergers diagnosing of NTs and parodying of NT social interaction in the coffee room. The characters Bill and Bull that are used here come from a series of childrens books, well known in Sweden, revolving around the adventures of the cat Pelle No-Tail. The twin cats Bill and Bull are characterized by the fact that they always agree with Pelle No-Tails arch-enemy Mns, the wicked leader of the cats, and that each always says the same thing as the other, albeit with slightly differing synonymous words. Helena initiated the discussion by talking about a situation in which NT people became extremely upset about being called normal when they were categorized by Aspergers. She brought up the general Swedish ideal of being a bit odd, as something that made people without diagnoses not want to be called normal. After this, she carried the discussion further by recounting how she had said in the same situation that she would rather spend time with you students than go down to the staff room, because its like listening to Bill and Bull. Once Helena said this, the rest of her narrative was drowned in the groups laughter. The comparison of NT-dominated socializing with Bill-and-Bull interaction stood out as something everyone could understand, relate to, and nd comical:
[With laughter in her voice] Funny that you say Bill and Bull, because, like, but its [inaudible]. Helena: Do you recognise it? Eva: [With laughter in her voice] Yes, but Mns says a thing. Thats right, said Bill. Exactly, says Bull. Eva:

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Helena: Oh yes, but its the same thing. Theyre saying the same thing, though with a little different . . . Eva: [With laughter in her voice] And, Its beautiful weather today. Thats right. ... Helena: [inaudible] Mikael: Yes, it is. Yes, it certainly is. . . . Eva: Yes. Oh yes. . . .

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Although this type of NT joking describes norms of NT social interaction as something emphasizing a mutually conrming interplay rather than content, I understand it also as an aspect of what Helena described as black humour. It can be seen as PWA joking among themselves about things that they nd difcult, in this case social interaction in an NT-dominated coffee or lunchroom situation, that can be understood as an expression of a disabling social barrier. Other expressions that recurred in the group included negative experiences of meeting with various types of NT ofcials. In contrast to Asperger jokes, however, a liberating element was found here, as the gaze was turned outward, toward NT social norms. Examples of this outward gaze included the diagnosing of NT people, especially NT ofcials, NT teachers, and NT parents: as in Helenas case, by characterizing NT parents, against their will, as normal, and othering the social behaviour of the NT teachers. Another, more ambivalent type of NT joke was found in parallel. This type of NT joking was directed toward me (or toward either of the two NT special educators in the class) in a way that made me feel welcome and included (being treated as one of the group, i.e. being joked with and about), but simultaneously othered and excluded (when the difference between me as NT and the participants in the group was accentuated). The following quotation illustrates this duality:
Hanna: Mikael: Maria: Hanna: Johanna: A question about time. Is there someone whos keeping track of the clock? Its twenty to. No time concept. Nah. [Small laugh] Is there someone who wants to take responsibility for the clock or shall I take responsibility for the clock? Whats the matter with it? [Several laughs] [Difcult to hear, several laughs, several people talking at the same time, someone possibly Helena continuing Johannas theme, says Where is it?] I was thinking if you want to end at an exact time. Whos taking responsibility for the time? Good lord, youre asking a bunch of Aspergers? [Several laughs] Thats brave of you, Hanna. As long as I have time to get to Systemet,4 its cool. [Several laughs] Mostly so that no one, the time now is twenty to . . . Twenty to what? Twenty to two. So I think Ive said well be ending [the group discussion] at two oclock, so that you know about it, so those who want to are welcome to stay, but the others . . . So do we have to stay until two oclock? Nah. [Exaggerated sigh in voice] No, but its all right, then. [Several laughs] We can go when we want to, in other words. Yes.

Hanna: Helena: Johanna: Hanna: Johanna: Hanna: Johanna: Hanna: Johanna: Hanna:

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Helena: Hanna: Helena: Hanna: Helena: Isnt it funny? Yes. Socializing with Aspergers. Yes. Oh yes. These questionings and . . . [laughter].

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Conclusions In this paper I have shown how a natural group of PWA used three storylines when talking about humour. Within research on autism and humour, there are two storylines one of humourless PWA and the other of alternative humour among PWA which can be said to depict PWA as essentially different to neurotypical people. In this study, the participants challenged the view of PWA as humourless, a storyline that in my view is still dominant in the social context that the participants are part of (Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-rst century). They did this both by invoking the storyline of alternative humour found in the literature, and by using another storyline, in line with the social model of disability, of NT humour or disabling humour. While invoking the storyline of an alternative kind of humour (related to disability humour), the participants expressed a specic Asperger humour and a sense of a specic Asperger subjectivity. The storyline of NT humour or disabling humour was used in order to focus not on essential differences in humour between PWA and NTs, but rather on different possibilities to joke and be part of the joke (rather than its object), and humorous social interactions stemming from more or less socially accessible spaces for PWA. Within the emerging eld of critical autism studies, PWA are repeatedly positioned by researchers, following Singer (1999) and Ward and Meyer (1999), as people who generally nd face-to-face communication very hard and instead prefer written communication. In accordance with this, online interaction (cf. Brownlow and ODell 2006) and autobiographies (Davidson 2008; Davidson and Henderson 2010) are used in research as examples of PWA using their own words to challenge representations and misleading stereotypes of autism and autistic behaviour. Via the present study of social interaction among PWA in a ofine environment, I would like to nuance this focus on the written communication, adding a broader focus on communication and social accessibility and more or less accessible social spaces and forms for social interaction for PWA, rather than a more narrow focus on specic types of communication strategies or settings (e.g. the Internet or autobiographies). As a participant in the 2002 Swedish summer camp for PWA argued: When people who themselves have autism/Asperger syndrome are able to meet under structured formats, the social interaction works very well. The same can be said about humour and joking; in a socially accessible environment, PWA make jokes and show a great amount of humour. Humour is here seen as an important part of constructing a sense of community and belonging among PWA. In a socially inaccessible environment, PWA are both excluded from being part of a (humorous) social interaction and put at risk of becoming objects of neurotypical joking. The participants talked about their alternative humour in ways that mirror the professional discourse of the alternative humour among PWA expressed in the literature: as plays on words, as childish, as detail-oriented. This is an expression of

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how PWA both negotiate with the professional discourse of autism and make use of it in their own talk. However, they also told more ambivalent and socially critical stories about Asperger jokes and jokes about NTs, where the specialness of humour among PWA had become more an expression of different social accessibilities (such as in the joking about NTs) or what different individuals found amusing, rather than essential differences between PWA and NTs. This is an expression of the additional presence of a more self-advocating and politically active discourse on autism among the participants, parallel with the professional discourse. The two alternative storylines, or counter-narratives, of humour can also be linked to the above-mentioned self-advocating/political discourse on autism within the general western neurodiversity movement. The rst of these storylines, alternative humour among PWA, is part of a broader discourse of autism as a neurological difference rather than a neurological disorder (see Brownlow 2010). The second, NT humour or disabling humour, is an expression of the use of the social model within the neurodiversity movement (see Silverman 2008), as part of a critique of the surrounding NT-dominated environment, with its disabling social barriers. Notes
1. For a brief introduction, see Joyce Davidsons Workshop Objectives at the Critical Autism Studies 2010 Workshop. http://www.joycedavidson.com/criticalautismstudies/? page_id=2 (accessed 7 December 2010). See also Silverman (2008) 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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