Approaching laughter with care: ethical refrains for worlds of multiplicity

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Emmerson, Philip (2019). Approaching laughter with care: ethical refrains for worlds of multiplicity. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis stages an encounter between laughter and care, seeking to reimagine their ethical capacities and potentials. Through engaging with non-representational theories, it loosens existing normative moral frameworks for both laughter and care, instead affording attention to what actually happens when they emerge and come into contact with one another. Drawing on extensive ethnographic engagements, working in nursing care homes in the UK, it thus offers a means of approaching both laughter and care as practised, affective and ethical multiplicities that often act in ways that exceed discursive and representational understandings of them. Through this, it argues that we need to address both laughter and care as refrains, capable of materializing and affecting in a multitude of different ways, and therefore capable of enacting a plurality of potential ethical relations. As such, the thesis presents neither a unified understanding of laughter with care, nor a prescriptive ethical framework through which to judge them. Instead, it develops a series of more fragmented and uncertain ethical approaches through which, it argues, we might foster a sense of generosity, kindness and response-ability towards the often complex, messy and imperfect ways in which laughter and care happen, separately and together.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):