The COVID pandemic provided a totally undesired but nevertheless useful natural experiment about fear and politics. With good reason, people feared for their lives – and many still do. The level of fear varied from country to country but was arguably present to some degree everywhere. Governments had to react, and made widely varying responses. Some prioritised health, imposed and enforce lockdowns, and were quick to develop or place orders for vaccines. Others privileged the economy over public health and denied the severity of this new coronavirus and its
Introduction The emotion of fear is a phenomenon gendered to its core. Over centuries, fear has been associated with femininity, while masculinity has been connected to bravery ( Kanz, 2013 ). This is reflected in quantitative studies that confirm higher levels of fear and anxiety for female as compared to male participants ( Cops and Pleysier, 2011 ; Rackow et al, 2012 ). Yet, while fear is frequently mentioned both as explanandum and explanans in various fields of gender studies, it is rarely analysed as a gendered phenomenon in its own right (see Stanko
Introduction This article offers an empirical critique of trauma-informed fear models by documenting how mothers experience recurring fear in the context of domestic violence as an occasion for future-oriented action. In France, advocacy discourses on sexual violence, child sexual abuse or domestic violence often articulate fear and neurological trauma and draw on a paradigm of intense fear – called ‘terror’ – to explain why victims cannot ‘resist’, ‘leave’ or ‘speak out’. The category of ‘terror’ describes modalities of being paralysed by fear; it is
135 11 Fear and distrust in 21st-century Britain Anna Minton Monica tells me that when she moved into a gated community after 20 years living on an ordinary terraced street in London, she expected to feel safer. But recently the electronically controlled gates surrounding her development went wrong and had to be propped open. As a result, she spent the whole night lying awake, feeling far more scared than she had ever been in her terraced house, despite more-than-adequate locks on her new front door. Two hundred miles to the north, in a very different
(rather than why) can a state of psychological confusion gradually lead to this alternative emotional, intellectual and practical adaptation – even if limited? We can ignore at least one piece of the process. In this regard, this article assumes that the apparition of religious fears in the consciousness of prisoners represents a key moment in their intramural careers. More precisely, I will show that this emotional variation can be understood as both the consequence of a deep state of anxiety and the condition for overcoming it. First, this text sets out the
This study contributes to growing sociological interest in theorising fear ( Tudor, 2003 ; Luna Zamora, 2005 ; Reguillo, 2008 ; Koury, 2017 ; Eckert, 2019 ; Schmitz, 2019 ) by providing cross-class evidence of what people do when they are afraid and how their emotion strategies matter with regard to broader inequalities. Sociologists of emotions have long been interested in emotion strategies ( Turner and Stets, 2006 ; Ariza, 2021 ) and the linkages between emotion and stratification ( Barbalet, 1998 ; Turner, 2010 ; 2014 ; Calonge Riello, 2022
replacements for other intimate relations at the time, despite being perceived as based on fear rather than friendship. When talking about their time being gang-involved, all the men in the study described there being a bond or ‘ties’ between the men in the gang. Jordan spoke frequently about being ‘tied’ to the gang, which conveyed loyalties, as well as resulting in him not being able to freely walk away and leave the gang. Jordan conveyed his affiliation to the gang during his time involved, likening them to ‘blood family’ who you are ‘willing to die for’. Dylan talked
The refugee status determination process is often, rightly or wrongly, fixated on the first words of the definition of a refugee: a person who has a ‘well-founded fear’. These simple words do not have a precise, legal meaning. They are capable of being understood in different ways, as the literature and jurisprudence on refugee status have amply established. Many have argued, with considerable weight of authority to support them, that the phrase connotes both a subjective and an objective element to the definition of a refugee. UNHCR argues, for example, that
déclassement , hate and resentment, fear stands out as a particularly relevant emotion. This is true when examining the German case of the AfD and related voter alliances, but also of other movements and parties across Europe. Fear in the discourse of the new right is frequently associated with concerns over status and employment, and especially with culture. In this respect, religion as an object of fear is particularly salient in this discourse. The new right are said to be concerned about the threat of an alleged hostile ‘Islamisation’ of society ( Wodak, 2015
Key messages Argues for a justification of lockdown policies by hypothetical consent. Shows why such consent is contingent upon fear from risks. Critically reflects the justificatory role of fear. Introduction The emergence of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in 2020 brought about a major global crisis. Today, around 100 million people have been infected worldwide, and over 2 million people had died of COVID-19 by January 2021 (Worldometers, 2021). Almost all states across the world implemented radical measures to limit the spread of the disease
