Humor: A Stepping Stone to Social Change
At the core of merely every financial, social, and political system exists the picture of the ways in which human lives develop. Inevitably humans as flawed beings create defective systems which lead to a myriad of consequences. Through multiple perspectives anthropologists attempt to identify and record such occurrences in ethnographic writings. In the article “On Ethnographic Sincerity” by John L. Jackson Jr the author communicates some of the different ways anthropologists incorporate humor and sincerity to bring originality to their work. In “The Encryption Theory of Humor: A Knowledge-Based Mechanism of Honest Signaling” Thomas Flamson and Clark Barrett dig further into the intentionality behind humor. Through the use of humor anthropologists are able to understand and improve public policy by gathering and publishing reliable data regarding a particular milieu making anthropology pivotal in advocacy.
To begin with, “On Ethnographic Sincerity” presents humor and sincerity as the basis for
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He states, “[t]hese are gifts that produce the very possibility of data acquisition and political praxis in an ethnographic context” (2010: S284). Here he makes note of the value of reliable ethnographic knowledge transmission in retrospect to the political potential that ethnographies possesses. What better way to ensure that the data being gathered is reliable than through the means of humor? Furthermore, anthropologists engage in the writing culture via ethnographies in many cases to collaborate in shaping political processes. By doing so professionals are able to recognize the problems that exist within a particular milieu. Only by recognizing implications can such concerns be addressed. This may be the reason why anthropologists tend to play a key role as political partners or even