Toward a sociological explanation of anxiety: Precariousness, class and gender among independent musicians

While anxiety is generally explained using an individualistic and biological framework, this article contributes to sociological approaches to emotions, considering anxiety as being triggered by social structural conditions, such as, in the case studied here, an outcome of precariousness faced by musicians in the music industries. Confronted by unbearable forms of anxiety triggered by an uncertainty encompassing all aspects of life, participants struggle to secure ontological security. Although experienced individually, the article reveals (1) how the disadvantages and exclusions associated with gender and class background are unevenly distributed, ultimately triggering different forms of anxieties; and (2) how emotions are differently managed depending on these social variables. Methodologically, the article presents an original study looking at the working lives of semi-professional musicians aged 25–37, based in Paris (France), Brooklyn, San Francisco and Portland (United States), Stockholm (Sweden) and Reykjavík (Iceland). Often considered as being at the forefront of precarious working lives in previous literature, cultural workers embody the current transformation of the psychosocial impact of contemporary precarity. Ultimately, this article argues for a repoliticisation of emotions, considering them as cultural realities and not ‘just’ idiosyncrasies.