5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Families face many challenges, from the everyday grind through to major life course transitions and societal upheavals. In difficult times, humour often emerges as a means to navigate the uncertainties, stresses and ambivalences that characterise the everyday experience of family life. It has utility in the reframing of situations, to make problems seem less serious (even if fleetingly), and fosters social connection.

However, humour also has potential negatives - it can be discriminatory, denigrating and self-deprecating, interacting with broader bases of social power and entangling with social inequalities. Additionally, certain situations can feel 'beyond a joke', limiting humour's usefulness. Humour, as a family practice, is therefore complicated by a range of social and cultural factors, as well as possible relational and situational obstacles.

This regular session, comprised of 5 oral papers of 15 minutes (allowing 5 minutes for questions to each presenter), aims to explore these complexities, examining how families navigate challenges big and small, and harness (or not) the potential of humour in their everyday lives. Papers are invited on the form and function of humour in family life, and how family humour practices are shaped by prevailing social structures and relations of power. Key questions to be addressed will include - How does humour help families adapt to adversity? What are the limits or drawbacks of humour use in challenging circumstances? How does social positioning, including factors such as class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality and (dis)ability, affect the ways in which families use humour to navigate challenges?