The ‘laughing chorus’ of ordinary actors: Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociology of critical capacity

This article proposes to re-examine the utility of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts as contributions to pragmatic sociology/sociology of critique. This article demonstrates how Bakhtin’s thinking complements Luc Boltanski’s sociology of critique in sharing central ideas about the power-laden dynamics of language and the ability of ordinary actors to resist ideological domination. This article demonstrates that Bakhtin emphasised the capacity of dominated actors to challenge social order using strategies such as parody and ridicule, encapsulated in the image of a ‘laughing chorus’ of public crowds. The final section proposes several avenues through which Bakhtinian concepts could be synthesised with pragmatic sociology.