Whose age of anxiety? Provincialising ontological insecurity

Abstract Background The ‘Age of Anxiety’ has emerged as a common narrative trope in International Relations scholarship, particularly within the sub-field of ontological security studies. This narrative frames recent global crises – such as climate change, COVID-19, and declining Western-liberal hegemony – as ushering in a new era of existential uncertainty. The article critiques the universality of this thesis, arguing that it overgeneralises from the Western-liberal experience and neglects spatial and temporal diversity in the global experience of anxiety. Methods The article employs a critical-interpretivist methodology, drawing on postcolonial theory, the history of emotions, and ontological security studies. It draws on illustrative examples to interrogate the spatial and temporal assumptions underpinning the Age of Anxiety thesis. Results The article shows how the Age of Anxiety thesis reproduces Eurocentric periodisations, presenting the affective experiences of the liberal-Western lifeworld as universal, thereby marginalising subaltern experiences of anxiety. The article also identifies significant spatial and demographic variation in the circulation of anxiety, such as the uneven distribution of climate anxiety, and introduces the concept of postcolonial anxiety to foreground longue durée, haunting forms of insecurity that elude Western-centric framings. Conclusion The article concludes by calling for a pluriversal approach to ontological security that recognises diverse emotional communities and alternative temporalities through which anxiety can be experienced. It urges scholars to adopt more reflexive, empirically grounded, and historically sensitive analyses that decentre the Western-liberal subject.