Feeling the Trouble: Comic Politics in times of Ecological Crises

Drawing on the works of Donna Haraway, Jane Bennett, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, and others, this article explores how incongruity comedy – defined incongruous encounters that traverse human and nonhuman boundaries – reveal the shared vitality needed to make ecological care come alive. Through case studies of Aristophanes’ The Wasps, Moche pots, and Koko the gorilla, the article argues that incongruity come with the potential to disrupt human/nonhuman-hierarchies and foster attention to the entanglements that sustain life. Overall, the article proposes a ‘genre shift’ in environmental storytelling, emphasizing incongruity comedy’s ability to integrate joy and wonder with critique and action. By redirecting the affective terrain of climate change politics away from despair and towards vitality, incongruity comedy can inspire democratic experimentation and localized practices of care. This shift, the article contends, is vital for cultivating the resilience needed to address ongoing ecological crises.