Anxiety, affective struggle, and

This article theorises the affective structure of neoliberal capitalism as involving a dominant reactive affect of anxiety. This differentiates neoliberalism from earlier periods, based on the dominant reactive affects of misery and boredom. Anxiety is theorised as an effect of social mechanisms, including precarity. It is suggested that current social movement strategies and pedagogical approaches are inadequate to respond to this context, as they are designed mainly to combat earlier forms of reactive affect. A method of precarity consciousness-raising is theorised as a means to overcome the political disempowerment caused by anxiety, and create a machine for fighting anxiety. The later parts of the article explore the affective and discursive effects involved in feminist consciousness-raising, and explore the possibility for using this approach as a model for a similar response to precarity and anxiety.