Rickard Jonsson

My research focuses on masculinity, sexuality, ethnicity/race, age, and language use. Using a linguistic ethnographic approach, often combined with a performativity perspective, as well as narrative- and discourse analysis of talk in interaction, I investigate the construction of identities in young people's everyday lives.Drawing on critical humor studies, I also explore humor and affect in peer interactions. 

Other key areas of interest include narratives of boys failure and underachievement in school, the construction of Swedishness in class rooms, representations of anti-racism in media and everyday conversation, queer perspectives on temporality, and analyses of language ideologies and contemporary urban vernaculars—often referred to as “Rinkeby Swedish.”

Together with Bente A. Svendsen, Jonsson is the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Language and Youth Culture(2023).

Selected publications

Jonsson, Rickard & Franzén, Anna G. (2025) Excluding unlaughter. Humor as affective practice in a youth detention home for boys. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Franzén, Anna G. & Jonsson, Rickard (2024). Banal humor and social order. Overlooked affects in staff interaction with incarcerated boys. Incarceration.

Wiksten, Martina; Jonsson, Rickard & Franzén Anna, G (Accepted) "If you want some pussy, give us freedom". Girls' taboo-breaking humor between subversive and normative. Gender and Language.

Franzén, Anna G.; Jonsson, Rickard & Sjöblom, Björn (2021). Fear, anger and desire: affect and the interactional intricacies of rape humor on a live podcast. Language in Society, 50(5): 763-786.

Jonsson, Rickard (2018): Swedes Can’t Swear: Making Fun at a Multiethnic Secondary School, Journal of Language, Identity & Education

Jonsson, Rickard (2018) “Handling the Other in Anti-racist Talk . Linguistic ethnography in a prestigious Stockholm upper secondary school”. In S Hållsten and Z Nikolaidou  (eds). Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication Capturing linguistic and cultural diversities Södertörn: Södertörn Discourse Studies 7 

Jonsson, Rickard (2015). Värst i klassen. Berättelser om stökiga pojkar i innerstad och förort. Stokholm: Ordfront.

Jonsson, Rickard (2014). Boys’ anti-school culture? Narratives and school practices. Journal of Anthropology and Education Quarterly. ​

Milani, Tommaso & Jonsson, Rickard (2012). Who's afraid of Rinkeby Swedish? Public debates and school practices. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.Vol. 22, Issue 1: 44–63.

Jonsson, Rickard (2007). Blatte betyder kompis. Om maskulinitet och språkanvändning i en högstadieskola. Stockholm: Ordfront.

Research projects

Disruptive boys? Public and local narratives about boys’ rulebreaking activities in school

Urban speech style and the idea of desirable Swedishness. Language use, language ideology and the construction of Swedishness among multilingual outer city youth in an inner city high school.rban speech style and the idea of desirable Swedishness

Interview

Boys' Anti-School Culture, Rickard Jonsson