We Have To Do ThisandThat? You Must be Joking: Constructing and Responding to Paradox Through Humor

This paper adopts a practice approach to paradox, examining the role of micro-practices in shaping constructions of and responses to paradox. Our approach is inductively motivated. During an ethnographic study of an organization implementing paradoxical goals we noticed a strong incidence of humor, joking, and laughter. Examining this practice closely, we realized that humor was used to surface, bring attention to, and make communicable...