ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS AT THE END OF THE WORLD: PREPPING AS ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICE A DISSERTATION by ALLISON FORD Presented to the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2020 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Allison Ford Title: Environmental Politics at the End of the World: Prepping as Environmental Practice This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Sociology by: Kari Norgaard Chairperson Ryan Light Advisor Matt Norton Core Member CJ Pascoe Core Member Anita Chari Institutional Representative and Kate Mondloch Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2020 ii © 2020 Allison Ford iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Allison Ford Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology June 2020 Title: Environmental Politics at the End of the World: Prepping as Environmental Practice This dissertation explores the practice of prepping, in which individuals and families prepare to respond to emergencies, disasters, or the collapse of society, without relying on social institutions such as the state or market. Based on ethnographic data, including interviews (n=20), participant observation, and analysis of online content (message boards, blogs, and social media), I argue that prepping is an environmental practice because it involves renegotiating the material flows of food, water, energy, waste, and other facets of material life to survive disaster or social collapse. This is related to the idea of risk society. By default, most households are reliant on collective public infrastructural systems such as municipal water provision, industrial food distribution, or the electric grid, a configuration I theorize as an environmental field. Preppers work to undo this default and minimize risk associated with it by emergency planning and becoming “self-sufficient”, in doing so modifying their ecological habitus to transpose elements of their cultural schema onto newly realized circumstances. I argue that self-sufficiency emerges as a culturally logical, embodied environmental response that serves as an emotion management strategy because it allows participants to reinforce valued cultural worldviews such as cultural individualism, ideas about human nature, iv gender, racial and class privilege, and the logic of liberalism, to which they are culturally attached. Emotions play a key role in motivating action, and in shaping which actions are deemed culturally appropriate by a given group. Even as preppers engage in a critique of current institutions, they fall back on dominant ideologies that reproduce logics of masculinity, whiteness, and class privilege. This has important implications for an environmental politics concerned with environmental privilege. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Allison Ford GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Middlebury Institute of International Studies University of California, San Diego DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Sociology, 2020, University of Oregon Master of Science, Sociology, 2015, University of Oregon Master of Art, International Environmental Policy, 2009, Middlebury Institute of International Studies Bachelor of Arts, Literature/Writing, 2001, University of California, San Diego AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Environment Culture Emotion Gender PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Mellon Dissertation Fellow, Center for Environmental Futures 2019-2020] Graduate Employee, Department of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Oregon 2013-2019 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, Center for Environmental Futures, University of Oregon 2019-2020 Wayne Morse Center Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Oregon, 2019-2020 vi University of Oregon, General University Scholarship, 2019-2020 M. Gregg Smith Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon, 2018-2019 University of Oregon, General University Scholarship, 2018-2019 Betty Foster McCue Scholarship, Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2018- 2019 Small Research Grant, Sociology Department, University of Oregon, 2019 Wasby-Johnson Sociology Dissertation Research Award, Sociology Department, University of Oregon, 2017 Sandra Morgen Public Impact Fellowship, Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2017-2018 University of Oregon, General University Scholarship, 2017-2018 Carolyn M. Stokes Memorial Scholarship, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon, 2017-2018 University of Oregon, General University Scholarship, 2016-2017 Small Research Grant, Sociology Department, University of Oregon, 2016 Carolyn M. Stokes Memorial Scholarship, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon, 2015-2016 Norman Brown Graduate Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon, 2015-2016 Small Research Grant, Sociology Department, University of Oregon, 2014 University of Oregon Sociology Department Graduate Data Collection & Presentation Award PUBLICATIONS: Ford, Allison and Kari Marie Norgaard. 2020. “Whose Everyday Climate Cultures? Environmental Subjectivities and Invisibility in Climate Change Discourse.” Climatic Change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02632-1 vii Ford, Allison. 2019. “The Self-Sufficient Citizen: Ecological Habitus and Environmental Practices.” Sociological Perspectives 62(5): 627–645. Ford, Allison and Kari Marie Norgaard. 2019. “Ghurba—A Longing for One’s Homeland” in An Ecotopian Lexicon, edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson and Brent Ryan Bellamy. University of Minnesota Press. Ford, Allison and Kari Marie Norgaard. 2019. “From Denial to Resistance: How Emotions and Culture Shape Our Responses to Climate Change” in Climate and Culture: Multidisciplinary Perspectives of Knowing, Being and Doing in a Climate Change World, edited by Hilary Geoghegan, Alex Arnall and Giuseppe Feola. Cambridge University Press. Ford, Allison and Kari Marie Norgaard. 2017. “Securing Sustainability: Culture and Emotions as Barriers to Environmental Change.” in Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, edited by Rachel Beth Egenhoefer. Routledge. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Mid-way through my career as a graduate student at the University of Oregon, I was asked in an interview to describe a time that I had worked collaboratively as a scholar. Before I knew what I was saying, I responded, “everything I do here is in collaboration”. Although academic labor can, at times, feel isolating, in truth, I was never alone in my endeavors. A committee of mentors, supportive colleagues, and my family and friends walked each step of the way with me. For this I am extremely grateful. This project would not have been possible without the unwavering support of Kari Norgaard, Ryan Light, Matt Norton, Anita Chari and CJ Pascoe. Kari and I have a running joke (borrowed from 30-Rock) that her mentors are my grand-mentors, which struck us as funny, but also deeply relevant. I am grateful to the chain of mentors who mentored my mentors and supported their work so that they might in turn support mine. In addition to my committee, I have been so fortunate to receive guidance, and support from faculty and friends within and without the Sociology Department. Thanks to Jocelyn Hollander, Jessica Vasquez-Tokos, Richard York, John Bellamy Foster, Eileen Otis, Michael Dreiling, Jill Harrison, Raoul Lievanos, Aaron Gullickson, Krystale Littlejohn, Julee Raiskin, Jamie Bufalino, Yvonne Braun, Ed Chang, and Shoniqua Roach and Joan Haran. Another fount of intellectual engagement, mentorship, and joyful connection has been the Center for Environmental Futures, made possible by the hard work of Marsha Weisiger and Stephanie LeMenager. Thank you! Thanks also to Rebecca Flynn and Ellen Herman at the Wayne Morse Center. This project has been supported by many grants and scholarships made possible by various offices of the University of Oregon, including the Sociology Department, The College of Arts and Sciences and the ix Graduate School. Thanks also to Chris Blum, Nena Pratt and Josie Mulkins for their constant help in navigating university and departmental matters. I am grateful to the many friends who have enriched my time at the University of Oregon, including Michelle Alexander, Jeanine Cunningham, Jerimiah Favara, Angie Rovak, Sarah Ahmed, Kathryn Norton-Smith, Patrick Greiner, Dimitra Cupo, Kindra d’Arman, Kirsten Vinyeta, Ashley Woody, Janeth Villa, and Tony Silva. My sincere thanks also to Jim Ekins who gave me a place to stay in Idaho, complete with animal companions. Life outside the university was made all the more pleasurable by the friendship of Joy Riffle, Jenn Porter, Helene Krothe, and Irene Stamis, fellow members of the JJLalaEnes. You all make Eugene so much harder to leave. So many people have made it possible for me to do this work in body and in mind. Thank you, Kim Donahey, Rachelle Cornelius, Maggie Hadley, Hannah Shallice, Dr. Mary Allison, Dr. Courtney Connell, Beth Woodard, Natalie Miller, Maria Hamburger, Joe Miller, Heron Brae, Dio Dimitri, Tibor Besek, and Jules Rogers. Lastly, to my friends and family, gifted and chosen. Thanks to Rico Soliven, Julia Townsend, Tami Abdollah and, Ethan Young and Caiti Roberts for long friendships. Thank you, Joan and John Young for your kindness and hospitality. I am eternally grateful