O riso e o corpo: reflexões acerca do riso e sua relação com o biopoder

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss how statements about laughter feature speeches related to the body. We analyze three scientific papers published and collected on the Internet and whose subject turns to the maintenance of health through laughter. We appealed to the studies of the French aspect of discourse analysis, with attention to Michel Foucault's postulates, mobilizing notions such as speech, statement, discursive formation, knowledge, power, subject, truth effect, body and biopower. These views pervade reflection, with special attention to standardization and regulation on the control of society that produce statements with discursive values related to the body. In the analyzes, we noted the speeches and the knowledge mobilized in the statements, which make up the biopower exercise network on the individual body and the population, to teach, encourage and normalize laughter in various situations. We highlight the statements that establish real effects in relation to laughter, based on medical knowledge, highlighting the benefits of repeating the act of laughing for the body and health. The statements materialize discourses that take a positive and pleasant perspective and thus builds individual and collective subjectivity, aiming subjects docility and productivity by involving them in a network that links knowledge and power.