http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2015.3.2.3.shepard European Journal of Humour Research 3 (2/3) 18–34 www.europeanjournalofhumour.org Revolutionary Games and repressive tolerance: on the hopes and limits of ludic citizenship Benjamin Shepard Human Services Dept., City University of New York
[email protected] Abstract This essay considers examples of boisterous game play, including ludic movement activity and humour in the context of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the USA. This form of auto- ethnography makes use of the researcher’s feelings, inviting readers into the personal, emotional subjectivities of the author. In this case, the author explores games, play, and humour highlighting a few of the possibilities and limits of play as a mechanism of social change, looking at the spaces in which it controls and when it liberates. While play has often been relegated to the sports field and the behaviour of children, there are other ways of opening spaces for play for civic purposes and political mobilization. The paper suggests play as a resource for social movements; it adds life and joyousness to the process of social change. Without playful humour, the possibilities for social change are limited. Keywords: play, Occupy Wall Street, Marx, Burning Man, pie fights. 1. Introduction Art and activism overlap in countless ways throughout the history of art and social movements. This essay considers the ways games, humour and play intervene and support the process. Here, social reality is imagined as a game, in which social actors play in irreverent, often humorous ways. Such activity has multiple meanings.