Humour, agency and the [re]negotiation of social order within workplace settings

The purpose of this paper was to explore the role and function of humour within sports coaching from a symbolic interactionist perspective. This was particularly in light of the structure of humour and how its resulting [inter]actions prevented as well as facilitated the advancement of individual agency. Data were gathered from a ten-month ethnographic study that traced the players and coaches of Senghenydd City Football Club (pseudonym) over the course of a competitive season). Exact methods of data collection included participant observation, reflective field notes, and ethnographic film. The results describe the presence of humour’s idiosyncratic nature (e.g., soft, hard, and aberrant), particularly in relation to how coaches and players influenced the negotiated order to which others had, to greater or lesser extents, comply. a reflective conclusion illustrates how concepts such as humour are entwined in everyday life, and thus contribute to the construction and negotiation of contexts, like coaching,.