Provisional Notes on How “Hilarious” Living Under ShariaLaw (The Case of Aceh)

Abstract

Drawing upon anthropological theory of resistance and testing its 
limits, I will present a closer observation on how dissenting voices to the
state project of Sharia in contemporary Aceh look on the ground.
Without thereby renouncing its violent effects, some ethnographic
stories I recount in this writing will reveal how the implementation of
Sharia in contemporary Aceh has created inherently amusing situations
and how it has occasionally become a humor producing machine.