Paper short abstract:

Starting from my fieldwork in the island of Santo Antão (Cape Verde) in this paper I will deal with the role of humor as an intercultural strategy that allows the communication itself in situations of ambiguous and uncertain situations such as that of the ethnographic relationship.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will deal with the role of humor and joke in the ethnographic relationship as uncertain communication.

Starting from my field research in the island of Santo Antão (Cape Verde) I will emphasize how the joke and the misunderstanding that is often connected to it, rather than barriers to communication can be important heuristic elements.

In particular in Cape Verdean culture, joke and irony are customary modes of communication and become an important tool for building relationships, the ultimate way to get in relational intimacy, almost a rite of initiation for the newcomer in the community. And it is precisely through the irony that the anthropologist's insider / outsider ambiguous position is perfectly captured by my interlocutors.

The joke and the teasing have, in fact, a fundamental role in the encounter between different cultures as they reaffirm the difference at the same time downplaying it, allowing the encounter to take place just because the character of "insincerity" of the communication is explicit. In particular, by asserting the opposite of what you actually want to say but in such way that the listener intends the true meaning and with the assumption of a complicity, a common territory where this reversal is clear, the irony is well suited to catch elements of ambiguity as those characterizing the ethnographic relationship. Finally humor can become a major key to manage a complex and uncertain intercultural communication.