Preppers

Recollections of an Unconventional Pedagogy appeared in Stories of Teaching at Carleton University in which award-winning teachers were invited to contribute. The book, to celebrate Carleton at 75 yrs,  was launched at the TLS event: Celebrating Teaching Excellence at Carleton.

Cross reference. See also:
"Father Taught Me To Teach" in the Memoir Section
"Thus Spake the Toad" in the Articles Section
"Emergence"  in the Articles Section
"Where Dwellings Dwell: House of Incompleteness" in the Articles Section

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to a ubiquitous 20th-century political space that was long overlooked – the bunker. This body of work draws on a variety of theoretical influences and explores multiple historical contexts, yet most remains wedded to the late Paul Virilio's influential 1970s study of the Nazi Atlantic Wall. Enlightening as his 'Bunker Archeology' is, Virilio's theorization has constrained contemporary debates around the function, materiality and temporality of the bunker. Here, we seek to counter this set of limitations in three ways. First, we contest the idea of the bunker as a simple space of human protection and argue for a more expansive conceptual-ization that is attentive to the bunker as a site of extermination. Second, we challenge the assumed concrete materiality of the bunker and suggest an expanded typology, utilizing a range of materials and milieux. Finally, we take to task readings of the bunker as an obsolete relic by highlighting the continued construction, re-appropriation and reimagination of this architectural form.

Degrowth is identified as a prospective turning point in human development as significant as the domestication of fire or the process of agrarianisation. The Transition movement is identified as the most important attempt to develop a prefigurative, local politics of degrowth. Explicating the links between capitalist modernisation, metabolic throughput and psychological individuation, Transition embraces 'limits' but downplays the implications of scarcity for open, liberal societies, and for inter-personal and inter-group violence. William Ophuls' trilogy on the politics of scarcity confronts precisely these issues, but it depends on an unconvincing sociology of individuation as a central process in modernity. A framework is advanced through which to explore the tensions, trade-offs and possibilities for a socially liberal, culturally cosmopolitan and science-based civilization under conditions of degrowth and metabolic contraction.

Review by Alexandros Diakosavvas and interview with the artists Kostis Stafylakis, Alexis Fidentis and Theo Triantafyllidis on the occasion of the work Notes to Readiness: Step 1, an artistic participation in the show ENTER by the Onassis Foundation and Onassis USA. May 2020.

The work was modelled after an online Dungeons & Dragons sessions inspired by the culture and literature of Preppers' subcultures.

10 Cloverfield Lane (Trachtenberg, 2016) appears amidst a growing concern in American culture with apocalyptic futures, threats (real or imagined) to national security, and social change that seems to menace the heteronormative, patriarchal family unit. The film features what I have come to know as the “crazy prepper” character, a trope that evolved from earlier indictments of survivalists as dangerous paranoiacs, and is underscored by reality-style TV shows like Doomsday Preppers (National Geographic) and Apocalypse Preppers (Discovery Channel). What makes “crazy” in 10 Cloverfield Lane? In asking this question, I wonder more broadly about the meaning of fortified domestic space in America.

This was a preview of my dissertation, which focuses on the cultural and political significance of survival shelters, clean rooms, and safe homes. In this presentation I posit that Foucault's concept of "heterotopia" - spaces that exist outside of the everyday but nonetheless shape the everyday in complex ways - might be a useful way to think about survival shelters and bunkers that are proliferating through the Prepper movement. I am also thinking more generally about the philosophical and political foundations of shelter architecture. What does it mean to be safe in the Anthropocene? How do literary tropes and scenario-based training schemes relate to domestic fortification trends? Given at the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA) annual conference at Rice University, "After Biopolitics", 2015, and also at the graduate conference for the Cultural Analysis and Theory department at Stony Brook University, 2015.

Preppers and Survivalists are commonly described as people who believe in abrupt, imposing and near-in-time disasters and who are actively and practically preparing to survive this imminent apocalypse. Preparing to survive, in this context, usually focuses on collecting gadgets for defence, safety and food (‘bullets, bandages and beans’), but also on social, physical and mental preparedness. Importantly, with the internet, online discussion forums have become a central part of prepping and survivalism. In these social arenas, survivalists and preppers, who want to remain (relatively) anonymous, can engage in discussions on practices and scenarios. In combination this creates a socio-material practice where the personal body comes to the centre. The body and its capacities are co-constructed with tactics and tools in order to prepare it for the upcoming trials. In this process, the internet is used both as a source of information, but also as a way to engage with peers. Consequently, for this paper, I want to explore in more detail how preconceptions of the body affect the socio-material practice of prepping. To bring focus to the paper I will specifically concentrate on a recent online discussion about ‘if, how, and to what extent one, as a survivalist, should or would help a woman with small children alone in a forest with no survival equipment after TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)’. This particular discussion is relevant since it, as we shall see, puts analytical categories, such as gender and sexuality up front, pointing to their retained importance as objects of study.

Kulağa garip gelse de, dünyanın sonunun, başka bir deyişle uygarlığın çöküşünün yakın bir gelecekte gerçekleşeceğine inanan ve hazırlık yapanlar var, üstelik örgütlü gruplar halinde... ABD'de özellikle son yıllarda sayılarında artış görülen bu gruplar İngilizce preparation (hazırlık) sözcüğünden türetilmiş olan preppers adıyla anılıyor. Biraz uydurmacılık yapmak pahasına dilimize "hazırlıkçılar" olarak çe-virebiliriz, zaten İngilizcesi de aslında biraz tuhaf kaçıyor. "Hazırlıkçılar"ın büyük bölümünün temelsiz iddialara inanan, ruh sağlığı bozuk kişiler olduğunu düşünebilirsiniz ancak ABD'nin saygın gazetele-rinden New York Times'ın haberine göre, durum bu kadar basit değil. Kendisi de bir "hazırlıkçı" olan Alan Feuer'in (2013) makalesine göre farklı toplumsal gruplar ve mesleklerden kişiler, kulağa bir hayli de akla yatkın gelen kötü senaryolar dolayısıyla bu işe girişiyorlar. Örneğin Feuer'in "hazırlanmak" düşüncesini benimsemesindeki kilit olay 2008'de "Lehman Brothers" yatırım bankasının iflasıyla başlayan ekonomik kriz. Konuyla ilgili bazı kitapları okudukça zihninde dünyayı "sürdürülebilirliği olmayan sistemlerden oluşan bir sistem" olarak canlandırmaya başlamış. Bazı hammadde ve ürünlerin sağlanamaz hale gelmesinin toplum yaşamını sürdürmek için bağımlı olduğumuz birçok mekanizmayı felç edeceğini söyleyen Feuer, buna örnek olarak ucuz petrolden yok-sun kalmamızın karayolu taşımacılığı ve gıda dağıtımını nasıl durdurabileceğinden söz ediyor. Feuer 2008'den sonra bir nedenle önce paranın değerini yitirmesi olasılığına karşı gümüş ABD Dolarları biriktirmeye başlamış, bunu dondurulmuş aylık yiyecek stokları izlemiş, nihayet yaşadığı New York'ta kendisi gibi "hazırlıkçılardan" oluşan bir grupla tanışmış. Grup üyelerini "hazırlanmaya" iten kaygıları-nın da aslında "gündelik ve yerel" olduğunu belirtiyor: "Terörist saldırıları, doğal afetler ve ekonomik çöküş". Anlaşıldığı kadarıyla bu faaliyetlerin farklı boyutları var: Bazıları için hazırlanmak, yaşadığı yeri terk etmekle ilişkili. Bu kişiler hayatta kalmak için gerekli olacağını düşündükleri eşya ve aletlerle dolu bir çanta ve elbette bir "kaçış planı" hazırlıyorlar. Bazıları oldukları yerde kalmayı tercih ediyor, tabii o zaman da işin içine "sığınak hazırlamak" giriyor. Feuer yazısında alay konusu olmaktan korktuğu için yaptıklarını yakın çevresindekiler dışında kim-seyle paylaşmadığını belirtiyor fakat "hazırlıkçıları" marjinallikle suçlamadan önce her gün "maruz kaldığımız" popüler kültürde "uygarlığın sonu" temasının ne kadar sık işlendiğini bir hatırlayalım, üstelik pek yeni bir tema da değil. Yalnızca sinemayı anmak bile yeterli olacaktır: 1950'lerde savaş olasılığına bağlı olarak "nükleer yok oluş" hakim temaydı, 1970'ler "felaket filmlerinin" altın çağıydı,

An overview of the connections in popular culture and specific subcultural practices between the "prepping" and zombies. Focus on Nat Geo's "Doomsday Preppers" reality TV show; zombie/horror literature, TV, and film like I Am Legend, World War Z, and the Walking Dead; and my own research and fieldwork into prepper subcultures.

“Prepping” is a social movement of individuals and small groups that are attempting to build resiliency at micro levels within their communities. Their aim is to learn how to effectively survive potential disasters and long-term change within their locale. Preppers choose to prepare for potential disaster through self-education, training, and the gathering of necessary materials to meet their own individual/familial needs. Keenly aware of community vulnerabilities, they also avidly support organizational attempts at building resiliencies. By building small, linked cells of micro-resiliency, communities are able to construct a stronger web that acts to support the larger community when disaster strikes. This allows prepared individuals to become responders instead of victims. This study introduces preppers and gives a brief history of the movement, followed by specific ethnographic examples to illustrate their efforts at resiliency construction.

1 Preppers and Survivalists are commonly described as people who believe in abrupt, imposing and near-in-time disasters and who are actively and practically preparing to survive this imminent apocalypse. Preparing to survive, in this context, usually focuses on collecting gadgets for defence, safety and food ('bullets, bandages and beans'), but also on social, physical and mental preparedness. Importantly, with the internet, online discussion forums have become a central part of prepping and survivalism. In these social arenas, survivalists and preppers, who want to remain (relatively) anonymous, can engage in discussions on practices and scenarios. In combination this creates a socio-material practice where the personal body comes to the centre. The body and its capacities are co-constructed with tactics and tools in order to prepare it for the upcoming trials. In this process, the internet is used both as a source of information, but also as a way to engage with peers. Con...

ABSTRACT Preppers and Survivalists are commonly described as people who believe in abrupt, imposing and near-in-time disasters and who are actively and practically preparing to survive this imminent apocalypse. This paper examines how the body, and the closely connected analytical categories of gender and sexuality, are used to define survivalism. In other words, how does corporeality structure survivalism – who gets to be a survivalist and who does not? In an attempt to answer these questions the paper turns to a theoretical framework that combines the notion of trans-corporeality with the performance of gender, sexuality and embodiment in virtual digital space. To bring focus the paper specifically concentrates on a recent online discussion about “if, how, and to what extent one, as a survivalist, should or would help a woman with small children alone in a forest with no survival equipment after TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)". This particular discussion is relevant since it, as we shall see, puts analytical categories, such as gender and sexuality up front, pointing to their retained importance as objects of study. The results show a desire to protect the body from change – change that often emanates from other bodies. As such, the desire to remain bodily untouched or unaffected emerges as a foundation for survivalism.

Dystopias accommodate potentials to burst the bubble of toxic positivity generated by a contemporary capitalist society idolizing perpetual growth. However, this paper argues that notions of dystopia and utopia may obscure the question of cui bono, even though this is absolutely central to the terms themselves. Dystopias and utopias can not be understood without considering who will win and who will lose. Hence ideas of dystopia and utopia contain ideology, and as such also underpinning ontologies and ethical frameworks. Or in the words of Karen Barad, they are ethico-onto-epistemological, since they must be understood as intertwined (Barad, 2003).

Dystopias accommodate potentials to burst the bubble of toxic positivity generated by a contemporary capitalist society idolizing perpetual growth. However, this paper argues that notions of dystopia and utopia may obscure the question of cui bono, even though this is absolutely central to the terms themselves. Dystopias and utopias can not be understood without considering who will win and who will lose. Hence ideas of dystopia and utopia contain ideology, and as such also underpinning ontologies and ethical frameworks. Or in the words of Karen Barad, they are ethico-onto-epistemological, since they must be understood as intertwined.

Survivalists, or preppers, are individuals or groups who are actively preparing for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales from local to international. (In their terminology, for when " shit hits the fan, " SHTF.) Picture 1 shows a network of prepper-related topics based on 2,000 titles sold on Amazon.com and collected in 2016–17, that either deal with preppers' issues or are purchased together with other preppers' titles.

Survivalists in American culture have been portrayed as political or religious extremists in both academic and popular literature.  They are usually characterized as extreme, right wing, white supremacist, millennialist, gun carrying, ‘wackos’ (Stewart and Harding 1999; Berry 1999; Weeber and Rodeheaver 2003; Mason 2005; Hill et al 2001).  However, I will argue that the meaning of preparing for a crisis or disaster has changed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  I posit that this definition of survivalist is no longer working for the majority of survival-based behavior that is present in the US.  While it may still be applicable to some extreme groups, there is another subset of behaviors that fit a broader definition of survivalist and new groups with these behaviors that claim the label for themselves.  This paper will flesh out this new category of survivalist, using Zombie Squad, a disaster preparedness group that uses a zombie apocalypse as a mythos, as an example.

Through my fieldwork over the past two years with prepper groups in the midwestern US, I have found that their preparations for dangerous potentialities are informed by two things: current events and their created mythologies.  While current events help to give a visceral reality and rationalization to their prepping behavior, the mythology that they create and share amongst themselves helps to support those ideas.  Further, the stories are instructive in that they help preppers to know how to prepare to engage and/or mitigate possible dangerous events, people and situations. Furthermore, preppers have burst onto the media scene as a new category of potential danger given the recent spate of violent incidents in the US that have been attributed to people that engage in prepping activities.  Those activities that help them to be prepared are now being viewed as suspicious.  Thus, not only are preppers centers for gauging and preparing for potential risks, but they have also become an object of potential danger within society.  My paper will discuss how preppers and some of their behaviors are being (re)constructed as dangerous by media discourse and policy, as well as how preppers have begun to react to this shift in the social landscape

SWR1, Der Abend
Auf Katastrophen vorbereitet - über die Prepper-Bewegung, Bunker und Hamsterkäufe:
"Fluchtrucksack, Medikamente, Gasmaske, Konserven. Ein Prepper ist auf alles vorbereitet und wappnet sich mit Notdepots und Spezialausrüstung für mögliche Katastrophen. Die Prepper-Bewegung kommt aus den USA; der Name Prepper ist abgeleitet von "to be prepared", also "vorbereitet sein". Und auch in Deutschland gibt es immer mehr Menschen, die vorsorgen. Sind das alle nur Spinner, die einen Meteoriten-Hagel oder Außerirdische fürchten? Eher nicht.
Selbst das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe gibt Einkaufslisten für den Krisenfall heraus und empfiehlt: "Ihr Ziel muss es sein, 14 Tage ohne Einkaufen überstehen zu können." In der Schweiz ist man bestens gerüstet, zumindest was Bunker angeht: "Die Schutzräume sind Teil unserer Identität geworden", sagt die Schweizer Historikerin Dr. Silvia Berger. Wir sprechen unter anderem mit ihr und mit Bastian Blum, dem Gründer der Prepper-Gemeinschaft in Deutschland" http://www.swr.de/swr1/bw/programm/der-abend/-/id=446250/did=16739426/nid=446250/x0w3f4/index.html

Just prior to, and immediately following, the election of Barack Obama for a second term in 2011/12, there were widespread reports of far-right activists stating their intention to leave the United States as exiles, secede from it or create their own nation. In addition to such secessionism and separatism, there has also been a rise in far-right and more ‘mainstream’ right-wing disaster preparedness and survivalism. This far-right secessionism, separatism and survivalism, as well as anti-government enmity, have their origins in the post-civil rights 1970s, as responses to the alleged loss of white supremacy brought about by Civil Rights and perceived need to prepare, adapt to or escape the crisis that this was seen to represent to white Americans. This paper will trace the history of white secessionism, separatism and survivalism on the far right in response to perceived crises in the post-civil rights era, including the Civil Rights Act, Cold War, Millennium, 9/11, election(s) of Obama and current economic crisis. In addition to this, the paper will examine the ways in which such far-right ideologies, discourses and practices concerning threats to whiteness relate to more ‘mainstream’ right-wing ones in which race plays a less overt, but important role.