Anxiety and political action in times of the Covid-19 pandemic
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221149632 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Forum on COVID-19 and Anxiety in International Relations |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221149632
International Relations
2023, Vol. 37(1) 164 –171
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221149632
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Anxiety and political action
in times of the Covid-19
pandemic
Andreja Zevnik
University of Manchester
Abstract
Since the beginning of the global Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 countries across the
world have implemented various measures to contain the virus. They have restricted public
gatherings, mobility and congregation of people at homes and in public places. These restrictions
however did not stop another chain of events – the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. In
the summer of 2020 people across the globe mobilised to protest the police killing of George
Floyd. In the UK the protest for Black Lives took place in all major cities, but they also continued
weekly in smaller communities by ‘taking the knee’. What interests me in this contribution is
how anxieties experienced during the global pandemic contributed to the mobilisation of large-
scale political actions for racial justice and how might we consider anxiety as a mobilising force in
political space in times of global pandemic in particular in the context of anti-racist protests such
as BLM. This forum contribution opens by considering how global pandemic aided conditions for
political action for racial justice, before discussing the role of anxiety in political mobilising. Here
I first detailed how anxiety is understood in Lacanian psychoanalysis before considering what it
tells us about the BLM protests for racial justice and specifically the removal of the Colston statue
during the Bristol protest on June 7 2020.
Keywords
anxiety, Covid-19, pandemic, political action, racial justice
In response to the global Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 governments across
the world implemented numerous restrictive measures to contain the virus. They pro-
hibited public gatherings and limited mobility and congregation of people at homes and
in public places. The everyday lives of most people became confined to the walls of
their homes and contact with friends and family became increasingly mediated through
Corresponding author:
Andreja Zevnik, Department of Politics, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road,
Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Email: andreja.zevnik@manchester.ac.uk
1149632IRE0010.1177/00471178221149632International RelationsZevnik
research-article2023
COVID-19 and Anxiety
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