This essay explores scenes of zany comedy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, across three sites: a television sketch about repeated electrical shock; the careers of freelance electricians known as vishoka; and encounters between residents and power utility inspectors. Drawing on the work of Sianne Ngai, as well as long-term ethnographic research, the essay argues that zaniness manifests the structural paradoxes of entrepreneurial populations that have alternately been described as the lumpen, the informal, or simply the urban poor. Specifically, it argues that such populations are often consigned to permanent improvisation and that this engenders a social freedom that, in some respects, remains indistinguishable from constraint. The zany can thus critically nuance portraits of livelihood and citizenship practices in urban Africa by bringing their freedoms and constraints into the same frame.

中文翻译：

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震惊幽默：扎妮丝与坦桑尼亚城市的即兴创作自由

本文探讨了坦桑尼亚达累斯萨拉姆的滑稽喜剧场景，涉及三个地点：一幅有关反复电击的电视速写；一幅有关反复电击的电视速写；二幅是关于电视剧的。自由职业者的职业称为vishoka；以及居民和电力检查员之间的相遇。文章根据Sianne Ngai的工作以及长期的人种学研究得出结论，昧体现了企业家群体的结构悖论，这些悖论被交替称为“贫民窟”，非正式人群或简单的城市贫民。具体而言，它认为，这类人口通常被赋予永久即兴创作，这带来了社会自由，在某些方面，这仍然与束缚没有区别。