Morrigan: is an experimental non-fiction writer and also teacher of history at an English secondary school.
Anastasia Christou is Professor of Sociology and Social Justice at Middlesex University, London, UK.
Anastasia is also Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an academic activist, trade unionist, feminist, anti-fascist and anti-racist. An interdisciplinary critical scholar whose work is fully immersed in the humanities, social sciences and the arts in the pursuit of a public sociology which is relevant, meaningful and transformative, Anastasia extensively researches, publishes and teaches on issues of identity, emotion, inequality, intersectionality, ethics, decolonial and feminist pedagogies, social justice and exclusions as regards gender, class, sexuality, race and ethnicity in migrant, minority, youth and ageing groups, having engaged in multi-sited, multi-method and comparative ethnographic research in the US, UK, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, France, Iceland, Switzerland, while recently engaged in collaborative research in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, as well as with communities in Israel and Palestine.
Anastasia engages with voluntary work transnationally with such NGOs as Cara (the Council of At-Risk Academics) and is a founding member of the Free University Brighton which offers free community education for the love of co-learning with a number of publics, often excluded from mainstream traditional university studies. As a writer and editor Anastasia works across disciplines, geographies and cultures conducting empirical field research and critically theorises from her findings. Anastasia’s research has been published with University presses (Harvard University Press; Amsterdam University Press), as well as, in many international journals and she has edited a number of book volumes and special issues, while her recent poetry appears in the Feminist Review, the International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM), Menelique and the other side of hope: journeys in refugee and immigrant literature. Anastasia is Editor-in-Chief of the journals GeoHumanities of the American Association of Geographers, and the Journal of Further and Higher Education. For a narrative snapshot see: Psyche – cara-syria.org
Ana Minozzo is a clinician and researcher based in London, UK. She holds a PhD and an MA in Psychosocial Studies from Birkbeck, University of London and is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychosocial Studies within FREEPSY, at the University of Essex. She has experience with a number of community-based mental health services and a clinic that has unfolded in relation to the threads of psychosis, gender and sexuality and migration. Ana is a member of The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, in London, UK. Her research crosses the fields of medical humanities, feminist philosophy and psychosocial enquiry. She is the author of Anxiety as Vibration: A Psychosocial Cartography (Palgrave, 2024, Open Access available).
The conversation explores the concept of anxiety and the speakers’ personal relationships to it. They discuss how anxiety can be both useful and destructive, and how it has been understood and diagnosed throughout history. They also examine the cultural and societal factors that contribute to anxiety, including the rise of the ego and the impact of national and collective anxieties.
The conversation highlights the importance of understanding anxiety within individual contexts and the potential for psychoanalytic approaches to provide insight and support. The conversation explored the experience of anxiety and its relationship to the body, mind, and society. It discussed the different contexts in which anxiety arises, such as gender-based violence, climate change, and societal responsibilities.
The participants questioned the medicalization of anxiety and the need for a radical reformulation of how we understand and address it. They also highlighted the importance of collective consciousness raising and finding joy in the midst of anxiety. The conversation touched on the role of the unconscious and the limitations of the information model in understanding anxiety. Overall, it emphasized the need to embrace the unknown, dismantle rigid categorizations, and explore the various dimensions of anxiety.
