Paper short abstract:

Within the context of a public clinic near favelas in Greater Rio, this paper looks at the potential of humorous mockery to highlight social inequality and invert hierarchies of knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the potential of humorous mockery to highlight social inequality and invert hierarchies of knowledge in the setting of a public clinic in Greater Rio de Janeiro. Staff who reside in and around local favelas mock outsider better-off colleagues (and myself) for how they (over)react to the sound of shooting near the clinic. Such reactions were in line with protocols for personal safety, set up by a humanitarian program by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), but laughed at by local clinic staff who knew a given situation did not pose danger. Such humor temporarily inverts the medical hierarchy of knowledge within the clinic, as nurses and dentists are mocked by locally resident healthcare assistants who, through prolonged lived experience with armed violence, are better able to assess whether given instances of shooting pose a real threat to staff. These instances of laughter acquire special meaning in light of a past event when assistants' opinions about the safety of their own working place were ignored. More than a coping mechanism or a "weapon of the weak" (Scott 1985), humorous mockery both highlights local staff's expertise with armed violence, and the unequal distribution of risk that comes with social inequality and place of residence within the Rio metropolis.