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Humour is a phenomenon that is pervasive in the human heritage in all its different ethnic and cultural diversity; however, humorous effects might exceed the mere pleasure or laughter to serve as a strategy of survival. Hybrid humour has an important societal role in breaking psychological barriers between people as well as in denouncing dominant discourses, criticizing realities and promoting resistance. This paper investigates hybrid humour as cultural translation, particularly Beur verbal humour in France. The first section of this paper explores the notion of cultural translation. In the second section, in order to conceptualize humour from different angles, I attempt to highlight the main theories in Humour Studies. The third part is devoted to investigate the hybridization of cultures from a postcolonial perspective, and subsequently interpret the notion of hybrid humour as a translational act. Finally, I analyze a set of hybrid jokes made by the Franco-Algerian humourist Fellag.

La palabra francesa arabe («árabe») está en el origen del término francés beur que se creó en verlan para designar a las personas nacidas en Francia cuyos padres o abuelos fueron inmigrantes provenientes del Magreb. Tras una breve descripción sobre cómo se formó dicho término en francés durante la década de los ochenta del siglo pasado, este artículo, primero, se plantea por qué el femenino del mismo es beurette y no beure para luego exponer cómo se han realizado unos muy determinados tipos de traducción de la identidad del Otro en otro tiempo colonizado. Que beur sea el perfecto homófono de beurre (mantequilla) en francés conlleva una serie de consecuencias simbólicas que se resumen en la nula voluntad política del Estado francés de traducir, adecuada y correctamente, todas las pertenencias de la identidad mestiza de las personas nacidas en Francia con orígenes magrebíes, en aras de una supuesta «integración» republicana francesa. Se han creado, en el uso popular de la lengua francesa, dos neologismos (beur y beurette) que, dada su dificultad de traducción, han sido exportados a otras lenguas como préstamos léxicos pero su correcta interpretación en las mismas deja mucho que desear. Hacia el final del artículo se presenta una reflexión crítica, a modo de conclusión, sobre los términos beur y beurette como «intraducibles» en el sentido apuntado por Barbara Cassin y se propone cómo poder resolver la aparente contradicción de traducir «lo intraducible» cuando quien traduce e interpreta sabe situarse «entre» lenguas y culturas, gracias a la noción de paratraducción.

Humour is a phenomenon that is pervasive in the human heritage in all its different ethnic and cultural diversity; however, humorous effects might exceed the mere pleasure or laughter to serve as a strategy of survival. Hybrid humour has an important societal role in breaking psychological barriers between people as well as in denouncing dominant discourses, criticising realities, and promoting resistance. This paper investigates hybrid humour as cultural translation, particularly Beur verbal humour in France. The first section of this paper explores the notion of cultural translation. The second part is devoted to investigating the hybridisation of cultures from a postcolonial perspective, and subsequently interpreting the notion of hybrid humour as a translational act. Finally, I analyse a set of hybrid jokes made by the Franco-Algerian humourist Fellag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the movement, itinerancy and liminality in Sakinna Boukhedenna's autobiography "Journal Nationalité: Immigré," and how these conditions relate to the making of the postcolonial identity of Boukhedenna. The autobiography accounts the author's commentaries about the rock and proto-punk music of Lou Reed of Sex Pistols, the reggae music of Max Romeo, the Rastafarian culture, and the Arab music of Umm Kulthum.

This article examines the extent to which L'Esquive, the winner of four Césars in 2005, follows the recent traditions of beur and banlieue film-making in France, which, since the mid-1980s, have traced the particular histories of immigrant and marginalized populations that have otherwise largely gone underrepresented in French cinema (Tarr 2005). These films, as Carrie Tarr would put it, ‘reframe difference’ in order to highlight the ways in which France's self-conception as a nation state sometimes occludes certain identifications articulated by marginalized individuals and groups. In so doing, many of these films call into question the French model of integration by highlighting the extent to which socio-political and ideological factors have a hand in marginalizing these individuals. While one observes in L'Esquive many of the hallmarks of other banlieue films before it, this film nevertheless sets itself apart in the way it reframes the relationship between high and popular culture through its explicit and very conscious use of language. By juxtaposing the eighteenth century playwright Marivaux's play Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard and the street slang of the Parisian banlieues, L'Esquive puts into question the very divide between high and low cultures. This article explores the implications of such a juxtaposition of different registers by taking into account both the film's production values (casting, budget, etc.) and the impact of its tremendous success at the Césars, as well as the way in which the film deftly deconstructs the much propagated stereotype of a necessarily violent banlieue. Through such sensitive and nuanced portrayal of banlieue life, L'Esquive goes a long way in laying bare some of the otherwise-hidden stakes of the French model of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current French popular cinema industry, stars no longer guarantee a film's success. However, the recent success story of Jamel Debbouze as a comedian and actor is exceptional, and hardly fits the archetype of traditional male French stardom. Debbouze was brought up in the Paris banlieue, and started out as a stand-up comedian. In 1998, he featured in two films, Le Ciel. les oiseaux... et ta mère (Bensalah)and Zonzon (Bouhnik). With Le Fabuleux destin d 'Amélie Poulain (Jeunet,2001), he gained greater international recognition, which was confirmed by the huge success of Astérix et Obélix:Mission Cléopâtre (Chabat,2002). This article seeks to determine the extent to which Jamel Debbouze stands as an obvious candidate for popular stardom, by analysing his 'successful Beur' star persona and comic screen image. It discusses his career in terms of it being representative of a new generation of popular stars imported from the worlds of television and show business, who have recently begun to take over French cinema screens and the celebrity magazines. It suggests that a redefinition of the status of the French film star in the 2000s is taking place, changing cultural patterns for popular stardom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Gérard Noiriel, immigrants have almost no place in the national memory of France, which seems to deny that its colonial past is inextricably linked to its current situation regarding North African immigrants and their descendants. In Parle mon fils parle à ta mere (1985) and Fatima ou les Algériennes au square (1981), Leïla Sebbar places North African immigrant women at the forefront of her narratives. These women construct memory as bricolage, using bits and pieces from their past, and confer it as a legacy to their children, who in turn absorb it or reject it along with the influence of French culture. The women thus reweave unofficial history; this places them in the shadow of the official 'grave-keepers' of memory. In so doing, their places in the margins of society can be viewed as 'radical spaces of openness' rather than closed spaces of victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]