«Sales gauchers!»: la stigmatisation humoristique des gauchers dans les arts martiaux historiques européens

Left-handed people, constituting 10-13% of the population, are overly represented in combat sports. However, over the centuries, left-handedness has been associated with bad luck, clumsiness, witchcraft, and devilry. Historical fencing styles and the manuscripts that explain them were developed for right-handed people fighting right-handed adversaries. The reinvented versions of these historical European martial arts (HEMA) are now flourishing worldwide, forming their own specific subculture. This article draws from an ongoing ethnography of The Blade Academy (pseudonym) in the UK which utilizes my own apprenticeship and observant participation as a left-hander. Inspired by the meta-framework of linguistic bodies (Di Paolo et al., 2019), I examine how originally right-handed techniques are adapted for left-handed people. Utilising Goffman's (1963) notion of stigma alongside benign violation theory (McGraw & Warren, 2010), my analysis depicts humorous approaches to stigmatization in a right-handed world. Jokes about “filthy lefties” (as opposed to “righteous righties”) draw on centuries of stigma from Roman times; nowadays, the sinistra (literally, “sinister”) has become a subject of banter. I argue that the inclusion of previously excluded groups (such as left-handed women) is welcomed, although the humor around them reveals the historical legacy of discrimination.