Abstract
This qualitative study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the philosophy and practices of New York’s urban prepper subculture. My three research goals are to: 1) explore preppers’ approaches to protecting their families against the pandemic, and how their commitment to self-reliance may have changed; 2) describe the different experiences of surviving a pandemic in New York, a global capital that is sharply divided by class and race; and 3) analyze the possible benefits of community resilience rooted in a sense of strong social bonds. For urban preppers, the government’s failure to enact a clear response to the pandemic reaffirmed their core belief: the government was not coming to help them. But while they had a strong foundation for successfully sheltering in place, they did not anticipate the challenges of working from home, remote learning, and staying in one location for such an extended time period.
Highlights
By mid-March, 2020, New York was the first epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US
An analysis of COVID-19 deaths by ZIP code indicated that the highest death rates were in low-income neighborhoods with disproportionate numbers of Black and Latinx people (New York City Health Department, 2020)
Through conducting virtual in-depth interviews and online archival research, this study explores how the respective experiences of urban preppers during the COVID19 pandemic have influenced their expectations of government and their approaches to surviving disaster in New York City
Summary
By mid-March, 2020, New York was the first epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. In the city’s COVID-19 epicenter of Central Queens, the virus disproportionally affected workingclass immigrants in these communities (Correal & Jacobs, 2020) Within these diverse immigrant communities, infection rates escalated among residents due to factors including preexisting chronic conditions, the lack of health insurance, language barriers, crowded housing, working high-exposure essential jobs, and high unemployment rates. Many real or predicted disasters that have been featured in American media have been experienced firsthand by New Yorkers with the COVID-19 pandemic being the most recent disaster. This direct experience with disaster drives an urban prepping culture that is committed to practicality and selfsufficiency
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