Defusing awkward situations: comic relief as an interactive strategy for people with disabilities
Publisher/Sponsor:
Leisurability Publications Inc.
Author:
Stebbins, Robert
The author argues here that people with disabilities who can speak and who possess the intellectual capacity to be humorous can use social comic relief to defuse, or alleviate, the situational awkwardness said to arise from time to time when they interact with people without disabilities. They manage the interaction in this manner, using certain kinds of humor, while avoiding other kinds believed to create trouble rather than solve it. He argues further that social comic relief is a distinctive, albeit fleeting, form of leisure valued for its own sake, as well as for its effectiveness in dissipating situational awkwardness. In this respect, however, it is an uncommon form of leisure.
Originally published in Journal of Leisurability vol.23, #4.
Publication Date:
1996
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