Worrier State

Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa
This book investigates how different cultures of fear manifest in South African social and mainstream media, arguing that fear and other emotions are a critical lens for understanding contemporary life. It discusses the myth of ‘white genocide’; so-called ‘Satanist’ murders; township urban legends; and white suburban anxieties.

Risk, anxiety and moral panic are endemic to contemporary societies and media forms. How do these phenomena manifest in a place like South Africa, which features heightened insecurity, deep inequality and accelerated social change? What happens when cultures of fear intersect with pervasive systems of gender, race and class?

Worrier state investigates four case studies in which fear and anxiety appear in radically different ways: the far right myth of ‘white genocide’; so-called ‘Satanist’ murders of young women; an urban legend about township crime; and social theories about safety and goodness in the suburbs. Falkof foregrounds the significance of emotion as a socio-political force, emphasising South Africa’s imbrication within globalised conditions of anxiety and thus its fundamental and often-ignored hypermodernity. The book offers a bold and creative perspective on the social roles of fear and emotion in South Africa and thus on everyday life in this complex place.

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