Diaspora and Ethnic Humour: The Reception of a Video About the Portuguese of France on YouTube

Ethnic humour is one of the places where questions of identity and belonging are played out. In an intercultural context, it can be either a strategy of social control or a mechanism of emancipation and subversive creation. It is one of the discursive spaces that best allows us to gauge the status of a minority group in any society, as well as the dynamics of the hybridisation of identities. Through this research, we seek to understand the different receptions of this type of humour among Portuguese and Luso-descendants living in France and Portugal and its role in (re)creating feelings of belonging, but also stereotypes. To understand the different receptions and analyse their role in the symbolic construction of audiences living in the countries of origin and in the host countries, this empirical study uses questionnaire surveys in French and Portuguese. The aim is to understand the diversity of interpretations of the video “Vamos a Portugal” (999,653 views), based on variables such as gender, age, migratory experience, area of residence, academic background, and socio-professional category, among others. From a total of 461 responses (234 in France and 227 in Portugal), it can be seen that individual and collective paths influence the reception process. While some respondents focus on entertainment and sophomoric humour, others are blindsided by what they consider to be an offensive representation that reinforces stereotypes. In both cases, although they consider that the video does not represent the current reality of the Portuguese in France, they proceed to a different reading of this production in a digital context.