This article will be of particular interest to those who are interested in emotions and anxiety in IR, ontological security, and post-colonial perspectives on global politics.

History matters too. There is a liberal-Western bias in the idea that the past 10 years have been exceptionally anxious. This periodisation ignores longue durée anxieties experienced among racialised and colonised populations.

I argue against over-generalising about 'our' collective emotional condition. Anxiety is experienced differently in different places.

Sadly, little has changed when it comes to war-related accountability. It is unlikely that the families of the disappeared/murdered will ever see justice, and the (so-called) "international community" has largely forgotten about the country's devastating civil war and its aftermath.

Sri Lanka has come a long way - the country now has a Marxist president and the Rajapaksa family - who oversaw atrocities against Tamils - have been outsted and disgraced.

However, the younger humanitarians that I interviewed gave cause for optimism. I spoke to individuals who - while self critical - were passionate about reforming aidwork along non-hierarchical, 'decolonial' lines, where reciprocity is emphasised over patronage.

Growing pressure to decolonise aid - which I see as a positive development - presents an ethical dilemma for many Western expat aidworkers. There is a growing realisation of complicity in the hierarchical & neocolonial nature of aid interventions.

Most expat humanitarians enter the profession with strong ideals about making the world a better place, and a thirst for adventure. But aidworkers experience exceptional levels of stress, burnout, and psychological trauma.

The article concludes that many aidworkers face an 'absurd' condition: trapped between a striving got meaning through moral labour and widespread disillusionment with the day-to-day stresses and the moral/political contradictions of aidwork.