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Paper short abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic exploration of local responses to extreme weather disruption and the influence of neoliberal ideology in policy initiatives aimed at enhancing local abilities to respond to weather-related emergencies in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

Local communities in the UK are experiencing increases in the intensity, frequency and duration of extreme weather events. Prolonged electricity outages are a major side-effect of these events and further compound the challenges faced by community members and emergency services in safeguarding human well-being. At the same time, financial cutbacks to public infrastructure further reduce the abilities of emergency services to adequately respond to weather-related emergencies. Recent UK and Scottish Government policy initiatives have sought to address the increased risk to human well-being resulting from public expenditure cutbacks by increasing local community and voluntary sector involvement in the development of emergency response strategies. Electricity companies have also become involved in promoting the development of 'formal' community resilience activities by working in partnership with local government, community councils and voluntary sector organisations. Examining data obtained from ethnographic research in four UK communities in Scotland and England, this paper provides critical exploration of the drivers and local effects of the development of these multi-organisational, cross-sectorial, community emergency response initiatives. It reveals how locally-embedded 'informal' knowledge and adaptation skills have become enmeshed within neoliberal ideologies, agendas and practices, and suggests that this has led to moral 'paradoxes of participation' in local storm planning and response activities that not only undermines local capacity to adapt to weather-related disruption, but constrains local efforts to creatively develop their own initiatives that utilise local knowledge and empower local voices in locally-envisioned politically progressive ways.