Resumen

DAHIA, Sandra Leal de Melo. Laugh: an intermediate solution for racists in Brazil. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2010, vol.10, n.2, pp. 373-389. ISSN 1808-4281.

The aim of the present work is to consider the laugh as an expressive way of transmitting and maintaining the racial prejudice against the black in Brazil. The laugh is manifested as a reverberation of the racist joke at social leisurely spaces where members release and share their covert racism. We consider that this represents a social practice that has been negotiated unconsciously and whose main function is to deal with the identity dilemma faced by the Brazilians with regard to the delicate issue of racial relations in the country. We use as theoretical support the concepts of unconscious alliances and psychic transmission and the intermediate category, all derived from the French psychoanalytic theorist René Kaës. These concepts seem to reach and penetrate the realities of the inter-subjective agreements sealed unconsciously. Our proposed reading attests to the interface between the unconscious and culture pointing to a dynamic and creative construction-deconstruction process of intermediate defensive solutions collectively produced and articulated.

Palabras clave : Laugh; Joke; Racism; Unconscious alliance; Intermediate category.

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