Role of Explicit and Implicit Practices in the Production of Situated Preparedness for Disasters

A major earthquake in southern California could be catastrophic. There are many efforts to plan and prepare for a large earthquake enacted on government, organizational, and community levels. Preparedness practices, while designed to educate and empower residents, do not ensure successful responses in catastrophic events. This paper addresses how people enact preparedness for a major earthquake using inductive research methods. The study site is a large university located in Orange County, California, an area vulnerable to a potentially devastating seismic event. Data collection efforts consisted of in-depth interviews, archival analysis of disaster planning materials, and observation of preparedness activities. A new theory of preparedness is developed as carried out through two sets of practices in this environment, and the case is made that it is a situated social process. Explicit practices are the traditional preparedness actions people engage in accordance with official recommendations. In contrast, implicit practices are activities, tools, and resources people use in everyday life not consciously associated with disaster preparedness that could be drawn on and adapted in postdisaster situations. Situated preparedness is reconstituted in different forms when new courses of action are necessary to adapt to constraining and enabling aspects of fluctuating contexts and social situations. Predisaster interactions between implicit and explicit practices set the stage for potential improvisations in postdisaster environments that can help people respond to change.