Dr Michael Mills

Courses taught:

• Criminology (Undergraduate)
• Criminology and Policing (Undergraduate)
• Criminology and Sociology (Undergraduate)
• Sociology (Undergraduate)
• Psychology with Criminology (Undergraduate)

Michael is a criminologist, sociologist, and one of the world’s foremost experts on cultures of survivalism / “doomsday” prepping. His ongoing research agenda is grounded in sustained face-to-face research with individuals and groups who prepare to independently survive major social collapse.

[email protected]

Background

Michael is social scientist with a particular interest in the fields of cultural and narrative criminology. His research is primarily focussed on the growing popularity of survivalism / “doomsday” prepping the United States and wider Western world in the early-21st century. In studying cultures of prepping, Michael’s work is grounded in sustained in-person exposure to preppers’ homes and lifestyles. It draws on a mixture of ethnography, interviews, media analysis, and surveys, and has played out longitudinally over the last decade-plus – during which it has examined the links between American prepping culture and Obama’s presidency, Trump’s presidency, the covid-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Generally speaking, this work questions the usefulness of media-driven stereotypes (and theories concerned with 20th century survivalist activity) to today’s prepping movement. Whereas such understandings regularly suggest that prepping culture is apocalyptic, politically-extreme, and reflects the outermost fringes of American society, Michael’s work offers a counter to this narrative: it demonstrates that preppers’ fears and activities often draw on politics and disaster-based fears that resonate throughout the wider US mainstream. Within and around Michael's work on prepping, his research and interests cover a range of other themes – including the sociology of risk, and apocalypticism.

Research interests

• Prepping and Survivalist Cultures
• Cultural Criminology
• Apocalyptic and Catastrophist Thinking
• The Sociology of Risk
• Political Extremism and Terrorism

Areas of research supervision

• Cultural Criminology
• Ethnography and Innovative Social Research Methods
• Survivalism and Prepping
• Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism

Some of Michael’s recently successful supervisions have included doctoral projects on low-level drug markets, psychedelic drug use, the lived experience of kava consumers, and domestic violence victims’ access to justice in Trinidad and Tobago.

Teaching

Michael currently teaches on the following modules:

• Introduction to Contemporary Issues in Criminology
• The Evolution of Crime and Criminology
• Media, Society and Crime

Qualifications

• PhD Criminology, University of Kent
• MA Methods of Social Research, University of Kent - Distinction
• BA Criminology and Sociology, University of Kent – First-Class

Selected recent publications

Mills, M.F. (in press). The Beginning of the End: The Rise of “Doomsday Prepping” in the United States. New York University Press.

Van Hellemont, E. and Mills, M.F. (2022). ‘Cultural Criminology and Gangs: Street Elitism and Politics in Late Modernity’ in D. Brotherton (ed), Routledge Critical Handbook of Gangs. London: Routledge.

Mills, M.F. and Fleetwood, J. (2020). ‘Prepping and Verstehen – A Narrative Criminological Perspective’, Tijdschrift over Cultuur en Criminaliteit, 9(3), pp.30-47.

Mills, M.F. (2019). ‘Obamageddon: Fear, the Far Right, and the Rise of “Doomsday” Prepping in Obama’s America’, Journal of American Studies, 55(2), pp.336-365.

Mills, M.F. (2018). ‘Preparing for the Unknown… Unknowns: “Doomsday” Prepping and Disaster Risk Anxiety in the United States’, Journal of Risk Research, 22(10), pp.1267-1279.

Media experience

Michael’s research and expertise has featured in a range of UK media outlets – including The Independent, BBC, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sky News, Metro. It has also featured in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and a range of other outlets in Australia, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Poland, the United States, and Brazil.