“Oh shit, should I be afraid now?” : Interpretations of responsibility and individual resilience in Stockholm

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“Oh shit, should I be afraid now?”

Interpretations of responsibility and individual resilience in

Stockholm

Emma Henriksson

Thesis, 30 ECTS (hp)

Political Science with a focus on Crisis Management and Security Master’s Programme in Politics and War

August 2020

Supervisor: Sara Bondesson

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Abstract

This thesis aims to attain a deeper understanding of individual resilienceas shaped by interpretations of individual responsibility in Stockholm. The research questions that will guide this effort are which interpretations of responsibility for crisis preparedness are there

among Stockholm citizens? And, how do understandings of responsibility influenceindividual resilience? To answer those questions, seven semi-structured qualitative interviews were

conducted and analysed through a thematic analysis, using resilience as a theoretical framework. The theoretical contribution of the thesis is therefore a better understanding of what shapes individual resilience. The findings show that while individual responsibility is conceptualised in the similar ways by the participants, the descriptive empirical accounts of individual responsibility and how they are influenced also present a struggle to adapt to uncertainty and complexity.

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1. Research problem and aim

1.1. Background

With the launch of the new Swedish total defence plan, the question of the individual citizen’s responsibility has been revisited. Swedish citizens were informed of this partly through the “If

crisis or war comes” brochure (“Om kriget eller krisen kommer”), which was compiled by the

Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) on behalf of the Swedish government and sent to every Swedish household. In the event of a crisis, Swedish citizens should be able to meet their basic needs for water, heat, food, communication and medicine for at least 72 hours, but preferably for seven days. The previous brochure, distributed in 1987, focused on war and direct threats, such as radiation or toxic gas. The shift from governmental to individual responsibility reflects an embracing of resilience thinking in Swedish crisis management (Lindberg and Sundelius, 2012:1297). The individual has a responsibility to prepare adequately, not just for their own sake, but also to assist others (MSB, n.d.:3).The

information is meant to increase the crisis awareness of civilians, while promoting individual responsibility for crisis preparedness.

Resilience is a difficult concept to define due to its many uses by different actors, such as natural scientists, social scientists, computer scientists, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs. This thesis focuses on individual resilience as in the increased awareness of risks and ability to cope with and adapt to risk in everyday life (Chandler, 2014:98). For the Swedish total defence plan, this means a focus on shaping the everyday life of individuals through ideas about individual responsibility for preparedness.

Despite information campaigns, analysts have shown that the distinction between what the responsibility of the individual is, contra what the responsibility of the state is, remains fuzzy (Asp and Sjölund, 2014:95).If the individual is unsure of what responsibilities they have in terms of crisis preparedness, resilience is difficult to achieve. Furthermore, the idea of what that responsibility entails may be interpreted differently among them. Enander states two significant benefits from studying individual perspectives on crisis management. First, it contributes to more realistic planning by highlighting perspectives other than those of experts and thus identifies weaknesses. Second, when working with risk and security issues, it is important to challenge expectations of how different people will interpret the information that is conveyed (2005:73). The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore interpretations of

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responsibility to gain a deeper understanding of how they shape individual resilience. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were performed to attain these understandings and later analysed through a thematic analysis, using resilience as a theoretical framework. A better understanding of different interpretations can ground crisis management and the total defence plan in empirical reality.

1.2. Research problem and aim

The aim of this research is to attain a deeper understanding of individual resilience as shaped by interpretations of responsibility in Stockholm, which is a contribution to the literature on individual resilience and disaster risk reduction. More specifically, this research has both empirical and theoretical contributions. The empirical contribution shows how a sample of Stockholm citizens interpret their responsibility for crisis preparedness and how that influences their individual resilience. Because the responsibility is unclear, exploring the interpretations of individuals will give an inclination as to what the state and public sector can expect from individuals. This research has been sought after in order to understand how individuals perceive crisis preparedness in general, for example in a study by Asp (2014:43). The theoretical contribution is a deeper understanding of individual resilience. This is useful for both academia and practitioners interested in how it is shaped and relates to the everyday life of individuals. The research questions that will guide this effort are:

• Which interpretations of responsibility for crisis preparedness are there among

Stockholm citizens?

• How do these interpretations influence individual resilience?

By answering the first question, interpretations among individuals will be identified and thus provide a deeper understanding of the role of individual responsibility. Interpretations involve a process of meaning-making by the individual that will be informed by their pre-existing knowledge. Responsibility refers to following advice presented about crisis preparedness by taking action to enhance risk awareness and preparedness. For example: taking part of information, maintaining a short period of self-sufficiency, heeding advice from state actors and sharing resources to help others (Asp, 2015:42). The second question then draws from these interpretations in order to explore the connection between individual responsibility and

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2. Literary review

2.1. Disaster Risk Reduction

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) defines Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) as “the conceptual framework of elements considered with the possibilities to minimise vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development” (UNISDR in Bradshaw, 2013:1578). For a long time, DRR was not exposed to influences from the social sciences. It did not address disparities in disaster impacts or varied experiences of those exposed to disasters (Tierney, 2012:245-246). Natural disasters, for example, have been overlooked as sites of social stratification, as they have been viewed as “acts of God” or simply nature’s way, affecting communities randomly and taken for granted (Fothergill and Peek, 2004:89; Olofsson, 2013:4). The technological risks that developed with the industrial revolution led to a distinction between “natural” risks and risks caused by humans (Olofsson, 2013:4). This shift in how disasters are viewed, as acts of God to risks caused by nature or humans, also affects how disasters are dealt with.

The emergence of the vulnerability approach in the 1970s brought forward the experiences and ideas in the Global South, with contributions from both Western and local practitioners and scholars (Gaillard, Sanz, Balgos, Dalisay, Gorman-Murray, Smith and Toelupe,

2017:430). The vulnerability approach brought a new perspective on the production of risks. A central tenant of the approach is that vulnerability to disaster is not determined by the event itself: society creates different conditions through social, economic and political processes. These different conditions are vulnerabilities (Fothergill, DeRouen, Darlington and Maestas, 1999:156). It means that because people are differently affected by these processes, people are vulnerable to disaster in different ways. Ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status are examples of qualities that can constitute vulnerability. Instead of viewing disaster as an “exogenous threat”, it is viewed as an “endogenous risk” (Bradshaw, 2013:40). Drawing from research on how gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and sexuality matter in crisis or disaster, the central insight is thus that pre-existing structures shape vulnerabilities.

Individuals are affected by social structures and it is therefore important to take that into account when exploring interpretations of responsibility. Overlooking this could inhibit the

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development of the total defence plan by overlooking factors that shape individuals’ ability to meet the responsibility in the first place. This thesis seeks to address these factors by

providing a deeper understanding of how interpretations of responsibility for crisis preparedness may vary between individuals.

2.2. Risk perception

As the public became increasingly involved in debates about environmental and technological hazards, the discrepancy between the public and expert community’s views on risk was brought to attention. This showed the need to study risk perception. (Tierney, 2014:17). The study of risk perception includes studying what shapes perceptions, how individuals and groups determine acceptable risks and the dynamic between policies for the management of risk and how they are perceived by the public (ibid). Initially, the focus was on why the public’s beliefs about the magnitude of certain risks did not correspond to the expert

community’s. This problem formed the basis of the psychometric approach to risk perception. Research by Tversky and Kahneman developed the approach “cognitive heuristics,” positing that people respond intuitively to probabilities based on cognitive heuristics or biases that lead to misleading conclusions (ibid). Three biases are still frequently discussed within the field. The first bias is availability, the ability to recall a previous occurrence from memory and as such draw on “the recency of similar occurrences, the drama associated with particular events, and the ability to imagine and visualise an event” (ibid). For example, after being exposed to news stories about shark attacks, people may inflate the risk of being bitten by a shark. Second is anchoring, which refers to how people tend to establish a benchmark or “anchor” when reflecting on risk, based on the information received or generated by themselves. Tierney provides the example of asking whether the likelihood of a large earthquake in Los Angeles is greater or less than 60 per cent in the following 30 years, the individual asked would likely provide a guess that is close to 60 per cent and then adjust from that point, as that was the suggested anchor (ibid, 17-18.). The third contribution is

representativeness, when an individual perceives a resemblance between the object, person or

situation in focus with other experiences or object – which tends to be a false similarity (ibid, 18).

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risks but believing that other are more at risk compared to themselves. Studies have for example shown that women and men differ in risk awareness and perception (Larsson and Enander, 1997; Enander, 2005). Men tend to express a stronger belief in their own capability to handle risk and act in situations involving risk, as well as a greater sense of security in several everyday situations (Enander, 2005:38). Because minorities and women tend to report higher risk aversion than men belonging to the majority, this has been called the white male

effect (Wester-Herber and Warg, 2002:79; Olofsson, 2013:4). Myopia refers to a short-sightedness in thinking about risk that results in the downplaying of disaster risk as people think about risk in a shorter time scale. An example of this is purchasing flood insurance after a flood but cancelling it after some years if another flooding has not occurred (Tierney, 2014:18).

In addition to cognitive biases, researchers began studying the influence of emotion on risk perception. Frameworks discussing risk as feelings share the idea that “judgement and decision making under uncertainty involve a ‘dual processing’ of risk-related information” (ibid). People use logic and analytical thinking when assessing risk, but emotions are an important part of the intuitive information processing that takes place simultaneously. Emotions do not cloud perception but play a key role in risk assessment processes. This influence of feelings on risk assessments has been called the affect heuristic (ibid).

Criticism that is levelled towards the psychometric approach posits that the research itself is largely based on carefully constructed laboratory experiments and surveys, which means that the applicability and generalisability to the real world is limited. Real world risks and hazards do not resemble the highly structured and isolated environment of a laboratory experiment (Tierney, 2014:20). Furthermore, when people make judgements and respond to risk they are subjected to a variety of social and environmental factors that can both limit and support their judgement. As a response to this, researchers sought to bring society into risk perception. This resulted in the social constructivist approach, which asserts that perceptions are not grounded in the access to an objective reality “but rather on systems of meaning that are provided by culture, developed through social interaction, and produced through claims-making activities that advance particular views of the world” (Tierney, 2014:21). Rather than perceiving and assessing risk objectively, perception and judgement is informed by social factors and meaning making, creating variation across space and time. This approach can be likened to

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the previously discussed vulnerability approach in DRR, which also emphasises the role of pre-existing structure. In terms of risk perception, pre-existing social structures and ideas such as gender roles, class, culture and race can influence the amplification and downplay of risks. This thesis contributes to this field by analysing interpretations of responsibility and the influence of those interpretations on individual resilience. Individual perception,

interpretation and meaning-making is affected by social structures, which this study will try to capture.

2.3. Resilience

Resilience has become a buzzword, but the term has a long history. To summarise, the essential meaning of resilience before the 20th century was “to bounce back” (Alexander,

2013:2710). Resilience and the vulnerability approach share an emphasis on proactivity, as both turn to everyday processes to mitigate and prepare for future crisis. A key problem of resilience is the confusion regarding whether it is a state, trait or a process (de Bruijne, Boin and van Eeten, 2010:15; Alexander, 2013:2711). This lack of conceptual coherency stems in part from how various disciplines using the concept provide slightly different definitions and uses for the term. One of the more influential conceptualisations of the term was stipulated by Holling (1973). He stated that resilience is the “measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables” (Holling, 1973:14). Holling’s definition was brought into the social sciences, but not without friction. Adger states that “simply taking the concept of resilience from the ecological sciences and applying it to social systems assumes that there are no essential differences in behaviour and structure between socialized institutions and ecological systems” (Adger, 2000:351). Key to Holling’s definition of resilience is the ability to absorb change and shift to a new state of stability or equilibrium. While Holling’s

definition cannot simply be applied to social systems, the idea of absorbing change has been ‘translated’. One of the first to use resilience in the context of social science was Wildavsky, who presented it as a strategy for decision makers to deal with uncertainty, contrasting it with anticipation, which is a form of centralised control that attempts to prevent damage from occurring. While that might sound desirable, anticipation only deals with known threats, not uncertainty (de Bruijne, Boin and van Eeten, 2010:21). Disasters are not just harder to deal with now in terms of their reach and force, but the fact that the modern state is increasingly

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potential damage of disasters. Vital infrastructures for energy, transport and financial transactions are transboundary and depend on each other, not to mention the dependency on the internet (Boin, Comfort and Demchak, 2010:6). Resilience thus becomes more popular as “managers seek to balance the shortcomings of existing policies with the reality of increasing exposure to risk” (Boin, Comfort and Demchak, 2010:5). Resilience thinking thus relies on ontological and epistemological uncertainty and complexity. Life is complex because it is not in any way predictable: it is an open system consisting of a “complex set of overlapping emerging processes in which all subject-objects are embedded” (Chandler, 2014:12).

Individuals are not separate from the world, rejecting the binary of the subject and the object, and life is fundamentally uncertain and complex, as it is impossible to predict anything when endless relations and processes result in endless possibilities. Because of this radical

uncertainty, we can never predict causality, only learn from events (such as disasters or policy failures) through self-reflexivity. To summarise, resilience is presented as a solution to

increasing uncertainty, resulting from perceptions of increased dependencies along with increased exposure to risk.

Radical uncertainty also renders the reductionist and linear governing of the state (or the market) as useless, as it can never predict the full extent of outcomes from governance (Chandler, 2014:18). Therefore, resilience puts greater emphasis on what communities and individuals can do for themselves and how to strengthen their capacities, rather than concentrating on their vulnerability to disaster or their needs in an emergency (Bradshaw, 2013:12). This results in an emphasis on adaption and self-governance to learn how to live with complexity and uncertainty. For DRR, it means drawing insights from disasters. After Hurricane Katrina, the concept of “resilient communities” was developed to further

understand how communities can prepare for and cope with disaster (de Bruijne, Boin and van Eeten, 2010:28). Community-level resilience aims to strengthen society by bringing together interactions on different levels of society and highlighting their influence on larger structures, thus promoting resilience on all levels of society (Chandler, 2014: 80; Bevc, 2013:17). In practice, resilience has also come to involve notions of development as a form of adaptation. Reports such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (2015) raise the idea of “Build Back Better”, which includes for example empowering women and promoting gender equality as important for creating resilience (UNISDR, 2015:21). However, it does reflect the criticism of the vulnerability approach in that it seems to divide

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the world into two, the developed and developing world, and fails to address resilience practices in the Western Hemisphere to the same extent. Exploring individual resilience in Stockholm (i.e. in a Western Hemisphere context) contributes to addressing this gap.

2.4. Criticism of resilience

The ontological assumptions of resilience are criticised for emphasising the complex and uncertain nature of systems and macro-level processes, leaving little agency in the face of crisis, resulting in resilience constructing “the world as one that is beyond our control and also beyond our comprehension” (Joseph, 2018:19-20). This renders the subject’s ontological status as constantly vulnerable and its epistemic reasoning is constant uncertainty (Evans and Reid, 2014:29). In other words, critics argue that it renders all life as vulnerable at all times. Individuals, communities and states must learn how to adapt to these risks to secure their lives, but criticism points out that it is biological survival. Evans and Reid argue that in this way political ambitions are neutralised and disabled, thus producing a form of nihilism by presenting biological life as the object of security (2014:37). It is deemed nihilistic, as other goals besides managing emergent risks, such as uncovering structures, are seen as "hubristic” or impossible due to the radical uncertainty that permeates life (Chandler, 2014:54). Critics therefore discuss resilience as a tool of neoliberalism and point to the consequences of that. They argue that resilience thinking creates an ideal resilient subject that is evaluated based on its resourcefulness and capacity to cope with crisis, while appealing to the liberal notion of letting the governed govern themselves (Joseph, 2018:3-4; Evans and Reid, 2014:9). Kolmodin echoes this criticism, stating that a potentially problematic aspect of resilience is that it risks not taking social stratification into account and to instead blame vulnerable groups for their irresponsibility and insecurity (Kolmodin, 2019:10). Paradoxically, resilience seems to rely on such concepts to an extent. For example, Chandler states that resilience thinking views the most marginal actors as “the agents of policy solutions through the understanding and challenging of their differentiated rationalities and local knowledges and understandings” (Chandler, 2014:51). Tierney incorporates a similar analysis into her use of resilience by discussing different forms of capital that are reminiscent of vulnerabilities in the vulnerability approach (2014:184), thus providing variations in rationalities and understandings. To

summarise the criticism, if life is seen as vulnerable at all times, political ambition risks being thwarted and there is no understanding of how social stratification and inequality affect individuals’ or groups’ capacities to be resilient.

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2.5. Resilience and responsibility in Swedish crisis management

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, in which over 500 Swedes lost their lives, triggered change in Swedish crisis management, as authorities learned that crises demanded a more flexible approach. This spurred the creation of MSB in 2009, which replaced the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SEMA) and the National Board of Psychological Defence (SPF) (Lindberg and Sundelius, 2012:1299). As a result of a changing security context, with new challenges for the government, the private sector and individuals, Sweden adopted a “whole-of-society” approach to achieve societal security (Lindberg and Sundelius, 2012:1297). This concept consists of two important factors: the inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders, such as individuals and private corporations, and the notion of creating resiliency within and among those stakeholders (ibid). Lindberg and Sundelius explain that another result of the change is that governments now have to do more with less; that is, “manage a growing spectrum of harmful events with shrinking budgets,” which means that effective use of resources is key (2012:1298). Helena Lindberg is a former general director of MSB, while Bengt Sundelius is a former executive at CRISMART and a long-term advisor to Lindberg and MSB, so they both carry much normative power in terms of Swedish crisis management. Fostering resilience on not just a governmental level, but in the private sphere and among individuals, is effective in this sense, as it ‘outsources’ some of the responsibility for maintaining societal security to non-governmental actors. They also state that motivating individuals to embrace responsibility will be “a major public leadership challenge for the future.” (Lindberg and Sundelius, 2012:1307) Lindberg and Sundelius, 2012:1307). Lindberg and Sundelius’ study is valuable for understanding how and why the government has

delegated the responsibility of security to other levels of society to foster resilience in the whole of society. However, what is lacking from this perspective is an understanding of what that responsibility entails.

The limited amount of research on crisis preparedness in Stockholm suggests a general unpreparedness (Majlard, 2017). An example of the shift in responsibility for security is the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency’s (MSB) pamphlet “If war or crisis comes” (“Om kriget

eller krisen kommer”) and the yearly “preparedness week” (Beredskapsveckan), both intended

to promote awareness regarding individual responsibility in the event of a crisis (Kolmodin, 2019:7). As Kolmodin points out in her paper, even if the state still carries the main

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responsibility in the event of a crisis, the discourse surrounding societal security,

preparedness and civilian defence clearly indicates a shift to greater individual responsibility (ibid). This devolvement of responsibility to the individual can be explained by the shift towards resilience thinking in the Swedish context.

Furthermore, as pointed out in an extensive study of the public sector’s and individual’s responsibility by Asp and Sjölund (2014:95), the distinction between the public sector’s vis á vis the individual’s responsibility is rather unclear. Moreover, a study shows that actors in the public sector agree to a great extent on the responsibilities of the individual: taking part of information, maintaining a short period of self-sufficiency, heeding advice from state actors and sharing resources to help others (Asp, 2015:42). It means there is an idea of what the responsibilities of individuals are on the behalf of the public sector, but individuals themselves may find that vague. The state has expressed the need for information and education to make this important distinction clear, but in what way or how the individual should be responsible is unclear (Asp and Sjölund, 2014:90). Research exists on the

responsibility of the public sector, but there are no studies on what responsibility individuals consider themselves to have (ibid:102). Therefore, this thesis makes an important contribution to the literature on crisis preparedness, as it provides a deeper understanding of how

individuals interpret their responsibility.

3. Theoretical framework

3.1. Operationalising resilience

Resilience is a difficult concept to define and operationalise due to the varied use of the concept. It has become an umbrella term for different qualities that are considered desirable. What many of the conceptualisations in the different disciplines share is the “emphasis on the

ability of the object under study (human systems) to ‘bounce back’ from a disturbance, rather

than some output variable” (de Bruijne, Boin and van Eeten, 2010:28-30). Adger defines social resilience “as the ability of communities to withstand external shocks to their social infrastructure” (2000:361), which does not make any references to adaptability but instead focuses on the ability to endure.

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Chandler offers a different way to study resilience that does not boil down to a definition similar to the previously mentioned authors’ works. Instead, he presents resilience as a question and an answer. “If resilience is the answer, suggested by policy interventions in every area, […], what does this tell us about the questions we are asking of the world and how we understand ourselves in relation to this world?” (Chandler, 2014:2). Chandler also states that there is no clear-cut conceptual framework or set of practices that resilience directly stems from; it emerges from a more general “ethos” that criticises linearity and promotes complexity (Chandler, 2014:52). Labelling the conceptualisation of resilience Holling relied on as classical resilience, which had a clear division between the subject and the object, post-classical resilience instead overcomes the subject/object divide by “understanding resilience as an interactive process of relational adaptation” whereby “the subject does not survive merely through its own ‘inner’ resources; the subject survives and thrives on the basis of its ability to adapt or dynamically relate to its sociological environment” (Chandler, 2014:7). Interpretations of individual responsibility explores this dynamic relation between individual and society, since it identifies and describes how individuals interpret this relational

adaptation. This makes Chandler’s conceptualisation of resilience suitable for this thesis, as the embeddedness of the subject-object can be explored in depth. In other words, the focus is less on specific characteristics of individuals and instead on how they relate to their

environment.

In order to capture resilience as a process, this study has developed two theoretical concepts derived from Chandler’s conceptualisation of resilience: uncertainty and complexity. These themes will function as tools to capture nuances and organise material from the interviews in order to first identify interpretations of responsibility, and second, provide a deeper

understanding of how they influence individual resilience.

As previously mentioned, actors in the public sector largely agree on what the responsibilities of the public are, namely taking part of information that is provided, maintaining a short period of self-sufficiency, heeding advice from state actors and sharing resources to help others (Asp, 2015:42). However, this thesis argues that these are concrete examples of

broader and more abstract responsibilities, related to the increasing use of resilience-thinking. The examples provided are concrete measures of the broader responsibility of adapting to

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uncertainty and complexity in order to foster resilience. The connections between resilience, responsibility, complexity and uncertainty are clarified in the following figure.

This lowest tier consists of complexity and uncertainty, since they are the ontological and epistemological assumptions of resilience. As such, they are what individuals need to adapt to. That explains the second tier, responsibility. In order to reach the goal of fostering individual resilience, individuals must embrace the responsibility to adapt to pervasive complexity and uncertainty. However, this study has emphasised the idea that pre-existing structures shape resilience. As a result, if individuals cope with complexity and uncertainty in varying ways depending on pre-existing structures, the resulting resilience will also vary. Thus, this thesis will address interpretations of responsibility through a thematic analysis highlighting complexity and uncertainty in order to fully understand how individuals interpret their responsibility.

3.2. Complexity

One common assumption of resilience thinking is that the world of politics is not external to or above the world: it operates within and as part of complex relations and embeddedness. This has several consequences for how the individual and politics are conceptualised.

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Proponents of resilience argue that with resilience, “politics returns to the people, to the sphere of our ‘everyday’ practices, interactions and understandings” (Chandler, 2014:54). As politics returns to the people, it is also the people that have the agency and power to devise solutions. The everyday is key for solutions to political problems, as it is through

understanding concrete practices, contexts and the problems they may create that a solution can be devised (Chandler, 2014:98). Thinking along the lines of resilience, crisis preparedness should not be the responsibility of the state; instead, an understanding of everyday life and practices regarding preparedness creates resilience. A key finding in DRR explains why resilience can be helpful: research has shown there is very little that political leaders and public administrators can do in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, particularly given lack of knowledge of an event that may still be unfolding (Boin, Comfort and Demchak, 2010:11). Furthermore, society is also complex in terms of the systems it is comprised of. “A complex system is one that exhibits high levels of numbers of components or nodes, differentiation between them, and interdependence among them, and thus a large need for knowledge” (cf. LaPorte in Demchak, 2010:69). The complex web of infrastructure and systems that make up our society creates an interdependence among systems. Tierney provides a helpful

comparison to the origin of risk, stating that “like risk, resilience also arises from the social order as an inherent property of social organisation” (2014:5).

Complexity also results in conceptualising the individual as a social product that is shaped by social contexts and relations, as opposed to being isolated, autonomous actors. According to resilience thinking, decision-making autonomy is not possible due to the complexity of relationships and embeddedness; instead, individuals have a bounded rationality that is

shaped by previous experience and the context they are embedded in. Another consequence of this embeddedness is that individual actions are extended and given more weight, as the consequences of these actions become part of a global and complex processes of interaction (Chandler, 2014:71). Because life is complex and we can never fully understand the

consequences of actions in advance, individuals can never be expected to align with a universal or objective rationality.

Individual perception of responsibility will therefore be shaped by context, which this study will explore by interviewing individuals about crisis preparedness in an everyday context.

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Furthermore, complexity highlights individual actions as they are given more significance in this framework, which supports the analysis of individual interpretation.

3.3. Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the premise that we can never know anything or predict outcomes, due to the underlying complexity of life and our societies. Rather than striving for security, resilience promotes an adaptation to uncertainty. Chandler argues that attempts to understand, shape or transform the world through political goals are seen as “hubristic” and “dangerous,”; instead, unknowability and lack of control are cherished as learning opportunities (2014:54). Social and economic problems are problems of ethical consumption and behaviour that can be solved through the state, but only to empower citizens who are unable to take responsibility, as opposed to policy interventions, for example (Chandler, 2014:75). Emphasis is therefore on societal development, managing own risk and empowering individuals to do so; the state should only play a facilitating role, according to Chandler (2014:78). An example pertaining to Swedish crisis management is the aforementioned promotion of preparation through information, education and guidelines provided by MSB or other governmental actors. By acknowledging risk as abundant and relying on self-governance to engender reflection and concrete action, resilience thinking becomes a way to adapt to complexity and uncertainty.

Anything can happen at any time, which means that there is an emphasis on preparedness too. If we understand the Swedish total defence plan as a means for creating responsible and thus resilient individuals, it is important to explore how this responsibility is experienced by the individuals. This theme therefore seeks to highlight the participants’ interpretation of

uncertainty for a more focused understanding of the interpretation of responsibility, based on the challenge it presents for individuals.

4. Methodology

4.1. Research design

This thesis is an explorative study of individual responsibility and resilience in Stockholm using semi-structured qualitative interviews and a thematic analysis to answer the research questions presented earlier. The study is explorative in that it seeks to contribute by

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“Ideas actors hold are integral to understanding (and hence explaining) their behaviour,” because it is actors’ subjective and intersubjective understandings that allow them to “make sense of their experiences” and relate to their environment (Hay, 2016:105). Therefore, the purpose of interpretive research is not to test a theory or model, but to develop understanding of meaning-making that includes an understanding of ambiguities or contradictions that may arise (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2012:109). This deepened understanding is informed by the researcher’s prior knowledge of concepts and theories (ibid:86), which in this case refers to resilience and risk perception. While this prior knowledge informs the researcher’s analysis of the material, it also presents the researcher with a responsibility to be reflexive throughout all phases of the research process. The resulting knowledge claims will be marked by the

researcher’s “own sense-making and the particular circumstances that might have affected it” (ibid).

4.2. Delimitations

The population for this study is the city of Stockholm, a group that in itself is very

heterogenous. Therefore, to achieve a strong qualitative sample, it is important to develop breadth and depth by taking heterogeneity and homogeneity into consideration when organising a sample (Langemar, 2008:61). In other words, in creating the sample I have strived to increase exposure. Exposure refers to the researcher encountering or being exposed to a “wide variety of meanings made by research-relevant participants of their experiences.” (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012:85). This is based on the idea that participants occupy different positions in the area researched and are therefore likely to have different views on the matter, similar to the concept of positionality as a researcher (ibid). In practice, this has been done by assembling a sample that consists of people living in Stockholm and mapping the variety of the participants. The mapping is a way to identify the different kinds of people and roles involved in the study (ibid). This mapping is summarised in the table below, highlighting gender, age, occupation, military experience and the household. These factors were highlighted as they are likely to affect risk perception, responsibilities or experience with crisis management overall. As previously mentioned, studies have shown that risk perception differs between men and women (see Larsson and Enander, 1997; and Enander, 2005). Occupation was chosen seeing as different workplaces are exposed to different hazards and entail specialised responsibilities. A nurse working the emergency room and an office worker have very different responsibilities in their workplace and are likely to have different

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experiences with crisis management. Military experience was chosen for a similar reason, as people who have undergone military training have some degree of experience with crisis management. Furthermore, a pillar of military training is responsibility: to protect and serve. The structure of the household was also added to clarify the participants interpretation of responsibilities. A parent is not only responsible for themselves but must be responsible for their children as well. Living alone avoids the responsibility to take care of others to some extent, but it can perhaps be challenging to tackle some responsibilities alone.

The sample was assembled from people responding to notices posted and shared on social media and in selected groups with different profiles and purposes, including housing associations, feminist discussion groups and prepping forums. The choice of groups also helped increase exposure, for example by finding people who are members of prepping groups and therefore more familiar with the subject.

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Gender Age Occupation Military experience

Household

Person 1 W 29 Fund manager Sambo1

works at FMV2

Fiancé; two children

Person 2 M 29 Graphic designer No Sambo

Person 3 W 41 Sales trader Relatives in

SwAF3

Sambo; three children

Person 4 M 62 Head of Compulsory

Education

Conscription Sambo

Person 5 W 20 Student and part-time

work

No Family

Person 6 W 60 Midwife No Lives by

herself

Person 7 M 38 Sales executive Home guard,

conscription

Wife; three children

The number of participants was determined in part by the time restrictions of this thesis. By using a smaller number of participants, the sample could contain variations in five different aspects of background and identity, while keeping the number of interviews small enough for me to give each participant time to develop their interpretations in depth, as well providing time to transcribe and analyse the interviews. The original goal was to select ten participants, which I later realised would be too time-consuming, given that transcribing took up to five hours per interview. After settling on eight participants, one participant withdrew from the study, resulting in the final sample of seven participants.

1 Sambo: a partner in a relationship who shares a household but is not married. 2 FMV: Försvarets Materielverk (The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration). 3 SwAF: Swedish Armed Forces.

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The sample and qualitative design determine the conclusions that can be drawn. First, the results of the study are not generalisable to a great extent due to the small number of

participants. This thesis aims for a deeper understanding of interpretations of responsibility, which means that it seeks to explore different forms of meaning-making, rather than attain results that are representative of a larger population. Qualitative method enables researchers to find descriptions that are valuable in themselves, as opposed to representative of a larger population. It does not aim to measure how common a certain perception or experience is, but to identify and describe them (Langemar, 2008:55-56), which can only be done through a qualitative method. The research design does not yield representative results, but it achieves the goal of exploring variations in interpretations of responsibility. On that note, a relevant limitation is that a larger number of participants could have increased my exposure as a researcher. Alternatively, other positionalities could have been included to produce more variety, for example sexuality or targeting specific areas in Stockholm. For example, by including people that do not align with cis and heterosexual norms, or more diverse in terms of ethnicity. Studies have shown that crises channelthe effects of social stratification, discriminatory structures and resource inequalities (Olofsson, 2013:3). A lower

socioeconomic status can cause “severe and sudden” downward mobility when disaster strikes, as a lack of resources makes recovery harder (Underhill, 2009:62-63). This study is limited in its exposure, as participants were generally of a higher socioeconomic status; it would therefore be interesting to study this further.

Second, because it is limited to people living in Stockholm, it means that the interpretations are limited to an urban environment. However, Stockholm is a large city and its population heterogenous. This means that although I have sought exposure, there are experiences and positions I have not been exposed to in my sample. Nevertheless, the interpretations

uncovered in this study are meaningful in themselves. Third, my sample covers the age range of 20-62, which means that children and elderly are excluded from my analysis. Fourth, the use of social media to assemble a sample can be problematic in that it can be difficult to reach outside of one’s bubble. Posting in groups that are based on interests and not personal

relationships has in part addressed that problem. Our connections could still create a form of bias, but by searching for participants in a broad range of groups, I managed to break out of my circle and contact people I have no connection with.

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4.3. Semi-structured qualitative interviews

Using semi-structured qualitative interviews, I seek to retrieve “thick descriptions,” meaning an emphasis on rich and meaningful material, as opposed to conducting interviews that are as similar to each other as possible (Langemar, 2008:68). Semi-structured interviews mean that the questions or topics are in part prepared before the interview and in part derived from the interview itself, such as follow-up questions. This means the interviews will vary in terms of questions asked (Langemar, 2008:69). Another reason this method was chosen is its

connection to the concept of resilience, the everyday and preparedness. According to

Chandler, the focus on everyday life in resilience thinking results in a “never-ending process of accessing the ‘reality’ of complex life and enabling existing capacities” (2014:105). Semi-structured qualitative interviews are suitable for attempting to access the ‘reality’ of complex life because they allow the participant to develop their thoughts and perceptions on the topic freely. This gives the research some insight into the everyday life of the participants. The interview guide and the information sheet are attached in appendices A and B. The questions are open and broad in order to limit my influence on the answers. I tried to capture this in the wording of the questions as well by opening the questions with “could you tell me about” or “what do you think of”, rather than asking “why” or “how.” The prepared questions in the guide focus on responsibility and preparedness, but they were of course followed by probing questions specific to the conversation with the participant. Following Langemar’s advice, I often asked participants to provide examples (2008:73), which allowed the participant more space to reflect as well as allowed me to deepen my understanding of the participant. Open questions that give the participant space to develop thoughts and perceptions help answer my research questions, considering that they are concerned with interpretations of responsibility. The final questions are direct yes or no questions concerning knowledge about sources of information on crisis management, followed by an opportunity for the participant to ask me questions. This also helps me answer the research questions guiding this paper, seeing as it places their perceptions in a context: to what extent has the participant engaged with available information on preparedness? This relates back to the idea of positionality, as it situates the knowledge of the participant.

A qualitative method was chosen to understand “experiences, thoughts, feelings, reflections and opinions” of individuals on responsibility for crisis preparedness (ibid:68). Bearing the benefits of a qualitative method in mind, there is nonetheless also a need for more quantitative

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studies on the topic to collect larger amounts of data that can be disaggregated into different categories (such as those previously mentioned). The lack of qualitative and quantitative studies on in the context of Stockholm needs to be addressed to erode the idea of a

homogenous and static population, and anchor crisis management in empirical reality. In this instance, a qualitative method is a better fit than for example surveys, because the aim is to understand variations of interpretations of responsibility that shape individual resilience. A survey could have retrieved information about experiences, opinions and perhaps even feelings. However, the highly structured nature of surveys prevent deeper reflection as the researcher essentially guides the participants by for example providing alternatives to answers. Qualitative interviews allow the participant to guide the interview, which opens up for experiences, thoughts, feelings, reflections and opinions that the researcher could not predict.

4.4. Method of analysis

The method of analysis chosen for this study is a thematic analysis (TA), which is a method that identifies and analyses patterns in the form of themes within the collected material. It is a widely used method but no agreement on a specific process in the literature (Braun and Clarke, 2006:6). This makes transparency even more important for the study, as

categorisation can appear arbitrary otherwise. This thesis has used Braun and Clarke’s

description of the process as a guide, which was chosen due to its elaborate explanation of the different steps. Compared to other forms of qualitative analysis, TA tackles the idea of themes “’emerging’ or being ‘discovered’,” because it erases the active role of the researcher that identifies patterns and themes, choosing the most significant and lastly presenting them in the final product (Braun and Clarke, 2006:7). This supports the idea of reflexivity as well, to be transparent regarding the choices that are made during the research process. TA involves the researcher’s attempts to interpret the participants’ responses. This is a translation from the context of the participant to the context of the researcher, which should be done in a way that allows both contexts to co-exist without undermining the other (Langemar, 2008:92). The researcher clarifies their position in relation to the research (Braun and Clarke, 2006:7) while motivating and justifying the choices through their connection to the research problem and questions.

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The first step is for the researcher to familiarise and immerse themselves in the data, done through repeated reading and taking general notes that will be returned to later in the actual coding process. (Braun and Clarke, 2006:16-17) Transcribing the interviews provided a great opportunity to this, since it means repeated interaction with the material. It is also an

opportunity to be reflexive by considering how the researcher affects the material. Translating the spoken words, silences, tone and body language of the participant is already an

interpretation of the material. In this thesis I have attempted to stay true to these non-verbal cues by including them in the transcriptions.

The second phase is to generate initial codes, which will provide the basis for the themes that are broader and the subject of the final analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006:18). This was done by reading and re-reading the material, making notes in margins and using highlighters in different colours to organise the different codes. Because my TA leans toward theory-driven, the coding was approached with the specific concepts of complexity, uncertainty and

responsibility in mind (Braun and Clarke, 2006:18). Examples of codes are gender,

education, “weird”, to do more and experience.

Phase three consists of analysing the codes that phase two yielded in order to organise them into over-arching themes (Braun and Clarke, 2006:20). Braun and Clarke outline two different levels at which themes are identified: the semantic or the latent. Briefly summarised, semantic level analysis involves “progression from description, where data have simply been organised to show patterns in semantic content, and summarised, to interpretation” where meanings, significance and implications of the patterns are considered along with previous literature (Braun and Clarke, 2006:13). The latent level attempts to identify “underlying ideas,

assumptions, and conceptualisations” that shape or inform the semantic content, which is why it is sometimes referred to as thematic discourse analysis (ibid). TA in this thesis is concerned with the semantic level, as the focus of the research questions is on the significance and implications of interpretations of responsibility on individual resilience.

Three categories were created (but not finalised): themes, sub-themes and ‘leftovers.’ This categorisation relied on the connections between the different codes. “A theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of a patterned response or meaning within the data-set” (Braun and Clarke, 2006:10).

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Seeing as the TA is theory driven, the themes correspond to the theoretical concepts used: uncertainty and complexity. The themes capture interpretations of responsibility and the influence they have on resilience, which connects the themes to the research questions and help answer them. The sub-themes were constructed based on the different interpretations and processes that helped form the over-arching pattern, providing structuring to the theme itself (Braun and Clarke, 2006:22). The codes labelled leftovers were not discarded, but simply collected under one category to enable re-organising them if appropriate during a later review. The resulting themes and sub-themes were:

• Complexity and vulnerability • Complexity of social construction

o Digital and physical context o Social context

• Info and uncertainty • Adapting to uncertainty • Responsibility vs. action

o Willingness o Experience

• Individual responsibility towards the collective

The fourth step is to review and refine the themes that were previously organised. This process is guided by the idea of internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity, meaning that they should be coherence within the themes but at the same time distinction between (Braun and Clarke, 2006:20). When the themes are coded in such a way that a pattern takes form and the themes capture the coded material, a similar process follows, but with a focus on whether the themes “reflect the meaning evident in the data set as a whole” (Braun and

Clarke, 2006:21). Re-reading the text at this point also allows the researcher to include previously overlooked material, since coding is a back-and-forth process. Here, codes from the left-over category such as to do more, was included in another theme (responsibility vs. action). After further analysis themes and sub-themes were re-organised, which is seen in the result section.

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The final step, not counting the presentation of the analysis, is to define and name the themes: what does each theme capture in the material? What is the theme about? (Braun and Clarke, 2006:22). The results therefore introduce the relevance of the theme. In this step, it is important to again acknowledge the connections between the theoretical concepts and the coding process.

Any theoretical framework carries with it a number of assumptions about the nature of the data, what they represent about the nature of the data, what they represent in terms of ‘the world’, ‘reality’, and so forth. A good thematic analysis will make this transparent (Braun and Clarke, 2006:9).

Approaching material with a research question and problem in mind means that coding and constructing themes will be informed by the purpose of answering those. This carries the risk that it is perceived as “cherry-picking” if the researcher is not transparent enough or only includes material that fits perfectly within pre-determined categories. This thesis seeks to avoid this by making the coding and analytical process as transparent as possible, connecting the method to the research question, and finally lifting examples of ambiguity or contradiction that enriches the understanding of interpretations of responsibility.

5. Results

5.1. Complexity as vulnerability

The interviewed participants were keenly aware of how complex society is and brought up several different aspects. Complex infrastructure creates simplicity by connecting people and services, but all participants brought up society’s dependence on these systems and the resulting vulnerability. Systems included water supply, electricity supply, food and fuel imports and internet services, such as banking and communications. Some of the participants raised the principle of ‘just in time’ as problematic, but also as a fact of contemporary society. Person 4 reflected on how increasing complexity has made society vulnerable compared to previous years, when the state took more responsibility for crisis preparedness. “During those days, there was some type of […] structural crisis preparedness in the whole of society; now that there is none, which makes you think, well, what’s my responsibility then?” (Person 4). He points out that it is not negative or positive, but simply a result of how society has developed. Person 6 also perceived a change in society, but a change for the worse due to

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spreading insecurity. Person 7 also reflects on this change, although he is more optimistic, as he refers to greater individuality and the expensive cost of centralised preparedness. However, he also expresses a worry regarding outsourcing of resources, such as fuel.

Many of the participants brought up examples of dependency resulting in making smaller problems into larger ones, such as complaining about tardiness in public transport systems or problems with connecting to the internet. Person 5, among other participants, thinks it is almost too easy today, which creates stress and problems when we do not have easy access to the things we usually do.

Us humans, we are not meant to live as well as we do, so we create problems out of things that really aren’t problems. Like, if the bus is late, we get angry. There are a lot of things that don’t matter at all. But it still affects us. […] We make ourselves more dependent on things that we shouldn’t really be dependent on (Person 5).

Person 2 and Person 7 highlighted this issue too, stating that it makes it easy to blame one’s own lack of preparedness on someone or something else. Expecting and depending on systems to always work and be accessible becomes crippling if they fail.

5.2. Information and uncertainty

During the interviews, by far the most recurring theme was the keen awareness that anything could happen at any time. As a contrast to uncertainty, knowledge and information stood out as a theme often brought up after reflecting on uncertainty. All participants said that they wanted to be able to take more responsibility for their own preparedness to varying degrees, referring to more information or more resources. Many of the participants felt that they had not been reached by information on preparedness, for example through websites such as dinsäkerhet.se and krisinformation.se or MSB’s brochure, but also pointed out they found it strange that it is not visible on TV or social media.

Contrasting perspectives on uncertainty emerged in the interviews, pertaining to the effects of having access to information and what type of information is consumed. Both Person 2 and 4 brought up the role of social media, stating that it can inspire discussion and influence the

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material [If War Or Crisis Comes] is released. […] Yes, well you become affected by what’s being discussed, in Facebook feeds or other feeds and so on” (Person 4). Innovations in communications allow people around to the world to connect and follow events worldwide. Regarding the threat of terrorism, Person 5 said that “it is a very relevant topic right now. In the whole world, almost. So that’s it, you hear and read a lot about it right now.” While she personally did not consider terrorism as the biggest threat, it still came to mind due to the amount of media coverage it receives. Person 2 discussed how security is talked about today, referring to a focus on negative reports in the media, which he believes influences people to become more negative themselves. Person 5 shared a similar opinion: “I think that many people talk about security today and how it’s changed for the worse. There are more riots and more extreme sides and stuff like that. It feels, well, it feels like there is a bigger threat” (Person 2).

In contrast, Person 1 seemed to prefer having that information, giving an example of a phone-app that sends her notifications about incidents in her surroundings, such as fires or burglary. “It’s something that I really appreciate because I get to receive the information, but of course you shouldn’t blow up every single thing” (Person 1). Person 5 also brought up an illustrating example of knowing versus not knowing, sharing her experiences of the attack on

Drottninggatan.

I was on the commuter[train] at T-Centralen when it had just happened and the train didn’t leave and the train was full and really warm, but we didn’t know why the train didn’t leave. […] And I’m probably glad that I didn’t know at the time, [that instead I] thought of ‘why can’t SL

[Stockholm’s Local Traffic] stick to their timetables, it’s so hot in here, I just want to go home’ [laughter], instead of, well, there are people dying above my head […] If everybody knew that, it wouldn’t actually improve the situation, it might just get worse (Person 5).

Another example is the distribution of MSB’s brochure. The participants were mostly positive about its distribution, but for some it also raised questions, such as why it was sent out and whether there is secret information that civilians do not have access to. “There is a reason for sending out this kind of information; it’s not like they just go, what the hell, it’s been 20 years now, or 40 years, let’s do this again” (Person 1). Person 2 gave another example yielding the same queries. He reflected on the Swedish Armed Forces’ (SAF) advertisement that

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contrasted a picture of students graduating with a picture of soldiers carrying arms, presented with the text “all that has not happened yet” (Försvarsmakten, 2019). “I think it feels like fear… It feels, oh my god, what will happen? What are we defending ourselves against?” (Person 2).

5.3. Adapting to uncertainty

The event mentioned the most was the terrorist attack on Drottninggatan in Stockholm in 2017. The event instilled a sense of uncertainty in most participants, who previously did not consider such threats to the same extent and that changed some of the participants’ behaviours to some extent. Person 1 claims that she stays out of crowds and is conscious of where she is walking when she visits central Stockholm. She also admits that she sometimes experiences panic when she is on the metro due to imagining possible scenarios. This insecurity was partly triggered by recordings from surveillance cameras. “[The attack on Drottninggatan] has changed my behaviour. Especially when I saw, from surveillance cameras, how strollers were pushed away. It made you think, shit, that could have been me” (Person 1). Person 3 also says it changed her perspective. Previously, she did not think such a thing would occur in Sweden, but she now feels more aware of risks and uncertainty. Like Person 1, she does not want to spend more time than necessary in public spaces. “[Konserthuset] is one of those places you could just…blow up [laughter]. It’s totally insane! But they could and so I thought about it, it’s hard” (Person 3). All women interviewed attested to being affected by uncertainty, either in terms of experiencing some level of anxiety or physically avoiding crowded places, such as Sergels Torg and the metro.

Person 5 thinks feelings of panic and anxiety can be useful and increase preparedness, using the example of when she experienced intense anxiety while stuck in traffic in a tunnel and she started to imagine scenarios: explosions, fires or gas. Person 6, who works as a midwife, also stood out in that she did not consider uncertainty something that makes preparedness more difficult, emphasising a basic level of preparedness. Despite this belief, Person 6 used the example of taking the bus instead of the metro as a way to adapt.

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I think we should be more alert to what can happen, but you shouldn’t limit yourself, you can’t live like that, but maybe think twice. Maybe, but I have always done this, take the bus rather than the metro. Just things like that (Person 6).

The men seemed less affected by uncertainty overall, but the degree varied. Person 4 explained that he purposefully bought a ticket to a football game the day after the attack on Drottninggatan, despite many avoiding big events immediately after the attack. “I became a bit defiant. I thought, no, I won’t be restricted” (Person 4). Person 2’s behaviour was not affected, but he notices higher risk and threat awareness in himself when he is in crowded places. “When I walk in places like that, Sergels Torg, or places where there are a lot of people, then I think about it. Like, escape routes or things like that” (Person 2). Person 7 did not feel that his behaviour was affected at all. He acknowledged the existence of uncertainty but did not seem to view it in a particularly negative or positive light; instead he focused his answers on how it relates to his preparedness.

5.4. Responsibility vs action

5.4.1. Willingness

A recurring topic was the difference between responsibility that the participant feels

compared to what they have acted on. None of the participants believed that Swedish citizens are adequately prepared for crisis but all perceived individual responsibility as important. When asked what came to mind in terms of preparedness, the participants referred to practices such as storing food, water, flashlights, candles, blankets and battery/hand-cranked radios. Most of the participants feel that, to some degree, they have not prepared enough in terms of resources or planning, with the exception of Person 7, who seems confident in his ability to take responsibility, but would still like to do more.

The dream is to be a bit of a survivalist. […] I don’t go around telling people that I am a prepper because many think that you’re a weirdo who builds a bunker in the garden, even if I would like to, to some extent, because it’s kind of cool (Person 7).

However, preparing more was not wholly unproblematic for some participants. Person 1 used cybersecurity and social media as an example when discussing how she ought to do more to increase her own preparedness and security.

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I mean, you could be a lot more aware of risks and work more on your private security. But then I also think that you would – I’m the type of person who likes to share things but would feel a bit restricted and almost like a lone wolf if I did that, as I’m so used to sharing (Person 1).

On the one hand, she felt she should do more to prevent identity theft by not posting too much information about herself or her family, but on the other hand, she felt it would be restraining to not do something she enjoys.

5.4.1. Hindrances in everyday

Another aspect central to resilience’s understanding of complexity that was frequently raised is everyday life. Responsibility is more easily discussed carried out, as other commitments occupy people’s time. The parents in the study raised this. Person 3, who is a mother of three children, explained how she already struggles to keep up with the everyday responsibilities of working full-time and tending to her family, which leaves little time for anything else. “Like you barely have time to read a book, never mind sitting down to think about important questions or less important questions, or just nonsense, or gossip. There is no time” (Person 3). She also reflected on the differences in responsibilities today compared to her parents’ generation.

You deal with so many things at the same time. […] Our mothers, even though I am a few years older than you, I think it was different. Now, so much more is demanded [of us]. We have constant contact with the school and parents and extremely many things happening. […] It’s extremely demanding, it’s extremely stressful, it’s extremely… strenuous (Person 3).

However, most participants with children (including Person 3) also referred to how their roles as parents made them more vigilant, compassionate and able to multi-task.

5.4.2. Experience

Lack of experience was brought up as a key reason for not actively taking more responsibility. Experience was defined in terms of differences between older and younger generations and experience of conflict or the military. Several participants made references to older relatives who experienced conflict or crisis directly, or who experienced resource shortages. For

“Oh shit, should I be afraid now?” : Interpretations of responsibility and individual resilience in Stockholm