Anxiety as Social Practice

Peter Jackson and Jonathan Everts
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Peter Jackson: Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England
Jonathan Everts: Geographisches Institut, Universität Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany

Environment and Planning A, 2010, vol. 42, issue 11, 2791-2806

Abstract: This paper advances a theory of anxiety as social practice. Distinguishing between individual anxieties and anxiety as a social condition, the paper suggests that anxiety has not been subject to the same level of theoretical scrutiny as related concepts such as risk, trust, or fear. Drawing on the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, the paper shows how contemporary anxieties involve the recognition of our own mortality and the destabilisation of established systems of meaning. The paper then turns to practice theory to show how social anxieties can be understood as events that rupture the fabric of everyday life, creating specific subjects and objects, ‘framed’ by different communities of practice, and becoming institutionalised to varying degrees. Focusing on a range of food-related anxieties, the paper explores the geographical and historical constitution of social anxiety, examining the process of anxiety formation and the factors that inhibit or enhance its social and spatial diffusion.

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2791-2806

DOI: 10.1068/a4385

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