Identity Work, Humour and Disciplinary Power

How are people’s identities disciplined by their talk about humour? Based on an ethnographic study of a New York food co-operative, we show how members’ talk about appropriate and inappropriate uses of humour disciplined their identity work. The principal contribution we make is twofold. First, we s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inOrganization studies Vol. 38; no. 8; pp. 1107 - 1126
Main Authors Huber, Guy, Brown, Andrew D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2017
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Behavior
Colonization
Discourses
Elites
Ethnography
Humor
Identity
Inappropriateness
Iron
Organization studies
Organization theory
Power
Self regulation
Service introduction
United States > US
co-operatives
disciplinary power
identity work
control
identity regulation
humour
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Summary:How are people’s identities disciplined by their talk about humour? Based on an ethnographic study of a New York food co-operative, we show how members’ talk about appropriate and inappropriate uses of humour disciplined their identity work. The principal contribution we make is twofold. First, we show that in their talk about humour people engaged in three types of identity work: homogenizing, differentiating and personalizing. These were associated with five practices of talk which constructed co-op members as strong organizational identifiers, respectful towards others, flexible rule followers, not ‘too’ serious or self-righteous, and as autonomous individuals. Second, we analyse how this identity work (re)produced norms regulating the use of humour to fabricate conformist selves. Control, we argue, is not simply a matter of managers or other elites seeking to tighten the iron cage through corporate colonization to manufacture consent; rather, all organizational members are complicit in defining discourses, subject positions and appropriate conduct through discursive processes that are distributed and self-regulatory.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840616677632