Paper short abstract:

There is need to account for the contemporary African comedian who inhabits the dynamic African-European cultural contact nexus. The comedians explore attendant transcultural discourses thereby critiquing the representation of Africa by others while staking claim in the representation of others.

Paper long abstract:

The anthropological role of comedy in societies across the world has been acknowledged in previous scholarship. However, the notion of jocular anthropology exhibits problematic potentials owing to the existing binary framing of the concepts of anthropologist and comedian. For instance, Koziski (1984) underscores the role of both as intentional culture critics but considers the former as ‘a sympathetic outsider’ and the latter a ‘cynical insider’. This restricted view may not properly account for the contemporary African comedian who inhabits the African-European cultural contact nexus. Therefore, to contemplate jocular anthropology involves coming to terms with the possibility of multiple manifestations of the insider and outsider phenomenon. Indeed, African comedians demonstrate awareness of the interplay of global interconnections in a manner that negotiates the place of local cultures within the prevailing global configurations of political and epistemic power. The comedians creatively explore transcultural discourses that define such intricate relations with a view to critiquing the representation of Africa by others even as they stake their claim in the representation of others. To help unravel these dynamics, this paper intends to draw from Kuipers’ (2011) theorisations on the ‘politics of humour’ and the notion of ‘political aesthetics’ advanced by Holm (2017). Such an attempt would address the serious subterranean issues in the humour texts thus bringing them within the purview of transcultural discourse in the globalised world. This paper derives its primary data from South African Trevor Noah’s work which deserves critical attention owing to its transcultural demeanour.