Anxiety, humour and (geo)politics: warfare by other memes
| Author | Christopher S Browning,James Brassett |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231151561 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Forum on COVID-19 and Anxiety in International Relations |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231151561
International Relations
2023, Vol. 37(1) 172 –179
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178231151561
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Anxiety, humour and
(geo)politics: warfare
by other memes
Christopher S Browning
and James Brassett
University of Warwick
Abstract
Humour is usually overlooked in analyses of international politics, this despite its growing
prevalence and circulation in an increasingly mediatised world, with this neglect also evident
in the growing literature on ontological security and anxiety in IR. Humour, though, needs to
be taken seriously, crossing as it does the high-low politics divide and performing a variety of
functions. In the context of the Covid pandemic we argue that the link between humour and
anxiety has been evident in three notable respects: (i) functioning as a (sometimes problematic)
form of stress relief at the level of everyday practices of anxiety management, (ii) working to
reaffirm biographical narratives of (national) community and status and (iii) most significantly for
IR, as a form of anxiety geopolitics.
Keywords
anxiety, anxiety geopolitics, Covid, humour, ontological security
‘If people are fighting over toilet rolls instead of booze, there’s something wrong’.
(Ricky Gervais)
Doctor: ‘Unfortunately the tests came back positive for COVID-19. You have coronavirus’.
Patient: ‘That can’t be correct. I have over 40 cases of Costco water and 200 rolls of toilet
paper’.1
Corresponding author:
James Brassett, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road,
Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Email: James.Brassett.1@warwick.ac.uk
1151561IRE0010.1177/00471178231151561International RelationsBrowning and Brassett
research-article2023
COVID-19 and Anxiety
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