UK Government has recently launched its UK Resilience Framework. The Framework promotes a sense of collective resilience and outlines the unsettled and troubled times that we live in. The war in Ukraine, global pandemics, and evolving cyber challenges are just some of the threats highlighted which have potential to impact our way of life. Built around three core principles (a shared understanding of risk; a greater emphasis on preparation and prevention; and establishing resilience as a “whole of society” endeavour) the Resilience Framework encourages everyone to be prepared.

‘Being prepared’ is the prepper’s mantra. Preppers are individuals who choose to gather items including food, water, and medicines in anticipation of possible disaster and shortages. Our research within the prepping community started with the one-in-five British consumers who chose to ignore Government advice not to stockpile goods in anticipation of post-Brexit shortages. Over time, preppers (in our project, mothers who disproportionately assumed home-based preparedness) stockpiled items which they felt their family would need over a given period (often several months). They learnt new skills (e.g., pickling, canning, and dehydrating), inventoried items and rotated their ‘stash’, and carefully curated meal plans and activities to keep their families fed, watered, and entertained during possible difficulties.

Preppers, then, are arguably already practicing resilience and represent a valuable source of best practice to learn from. However, they are often marginalised and vilified as holding delusional, end-of-the world, apocalyptic views (which many individuals consider farfetched and unnecessary).

But is preparing for disaster so farfetched? As we witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic, ordinary, unprepared consumers ravaged supermarkets and quickly stockpiled items (more usually toilet paper, tinned beans, pasta, and other long-life items) to ensure their family did not go without during local and national lockdowns. What resulted was empty supermarket shelves through mass panic-buying which overwhelmed supply-chains, meaning that lots of people went without because of a lack of preparedness.

As we have each lived through such difficult and turbulent times, compounded by rising energy costs and the associated cost-of-living crisis, is it, then, so extraordinary to follow the prepping mantra to ‘be prepared’?

UK Government doesn’t think so. Its new guidance urges households to stockpile items such as radios and candles, and to have ample food and water in case disaster strikes. Although possibly alarming, Governments around the world (including Scotland, New Zealand and the United States) have already called for such individual action and preparedness.

Despite admirable intentions, there are, however, several flaws with the approach the UK Resilience Framework takes:

The ‘haves’ vs ‘have-nots’

Firstly, despite the resilience framework promoting a ‘whole of society’ approach, preparedness inevitably develops into a scenario of haves and have-nots. Preparedness, even if practiced over time (e.g., through exploiting supermarket sales promotions over an extended period), costs (in both a financial, mental-load, and time-based perspective). Our research with (predominantly affluent, middle-class) preppers reveals their relative privilege in society. For example, they have vehicular access to out-of-town supermarkets to exploit sales promotions; have ‘extra’ space to store their amassed goods; have time to learn prepping skills through stable employment, often within dual-income households; and they have the financial means to buy equipment to underpin their prepping efforts (e.g., storage containers; dehydrating machines). As such, considerable social and race-based inequalities underpin the ability, or otherwise, to be prepared (with lots of mothers already struggling to feed their families daily, without ability to look forward to envisaging ‘possibilities’ which may/may not actualise). In short: not everyone can ‘be prepared’.

The stigmatization of the unprepared

Secondly, and linked with the above, in assuming that everyone can prep, those who cannot likely face vilification for failing to act, as encouraged by Government. This ‘choice-based’ approach to prepping is problematic. Our own research highlights a class-based ‘othering’ of the unprepared. Our participants often stigmatized unprepared mothers as “lazy” and “feckless”, yet overlooked their relative (class-based, financial) privilege in being able to gather extra goods. In this scenario, being unprepared could be positioned as a ‘choice’, with those in real need likely facing little sympathy from those with the ability to prep. In sum: the resilience framework has potential to foster societal stigma (overlooking the barriers to practicing resilience).

An inward-looking outcome

Thirdly, our research within the prepping community demonstrates an immediate level of preparedness. The mothers that we spoke with were preparing to feed their own family, and envisaged difficulties in sharing their goods with others beyond their immediate family unit. We are, therefore, cautious of the Resilience Framework’s positioning as a ‘whole-of-society’ approach. Given that prepping envisages considerable labour and resource, we argue that further consideration and prioritisation of those who cannot prep (e.g., the disabled, the vulnerable, the low-income) is needed. In sum: if ‘shit hits the fan’, our research suggests an individual approach to caregiving, which problematises the communal focus of the resilience framework.

Next steps

We have shared our concerns with The Cabinet Office through meetings with the Resilience Directorate, and we are using our research to inform the roll-out of the UK Resilience Framework website (which will offer tangible advice on how to prepare for/act during emergencies). Ultimately, we call for a more sympathetic positioning of the Resilience Framework, which acknowledges the structural and societal inequalities surrounding the ability to be prepared and greater consideration of how the most vulnerable in society will be protected during future disruption.

Want to read more on this subject? Check out Dr Kerrane’s article for The Conversation, ‘UK urged to get ready for disaster with new national crises plan – but our research reveals the dark side of prepping.’