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Paper short abstract

Indigenous populations in Mexico have been considered for centuries as lagging behind Europeans and their descendants. This paper describes an anthropological experiment with decolonial humour with which urban indigenous individuals highlight the need to recognise them as part of the social fabric.

Paper long abstract

A group of amateur urban Indigenous comedians in Mexico are writing and recording jokes about the prejudices and discrimination they regularly face. Such centuries old bigotry is partly due to ideas of racialisation, but also to a sense of Indigenous peoples as failing to catch up with the rest. These ideas have determined not only attitudes and acts by individuals, but also structural discrimination with social and bureaucratic harmful repercussions. Hegemonic power in the country, as in most of Latin America, follows colonial forms of racialised and class-based ideas. These in turn have shaped the polarisation in the country between affluent and deprived populations, with racist and classist comments and humour invading public spheres. Nevertheless, the group of amateur urban indigenous comedians seeks not to focus on these colonial categories, but simply to poke fun at such inequalities. Their comedy does not include bitterness or indignation; it is rather light-hearted and conciliatory. The project that informs this paper is an anthropological experiment of decolonial humour from an indigenous perspective. Originally aimed at addressing racism that Indigenous migrants face in Guadalajara, Mexico, the experiment has evolved at the hands of participants. The jokes and sketches they have so far written and recorded include not only forms jests at discrimination and hostility but also about simple misunderstandings and squabbles. They laugh at tensions while also offering a vision of what communal life could be. In their view, the failure worth laughing about is that of polarisation itself.