The Cultural Production of Flood Injustice: Learnings from Hull, UK and Calgary, Canada

Global flood risk is intensifying due to climate change, rapid urbanisation, and population growth. Hull (UK) and Calgary (Canada) are flood-prone cities where these risks intersect with deep-rooted social inequalities. This comparative study examines how flood injustices are culturally produced by analysing the interplay between local authority policies and practices and the lived experiences of minoritised ethnic communities (MECs). This is because MECs are often disproportionately exposed to flood risks yet systematically excluded from decision-making processes that shape flood resilience. The study also advances serious games (games with an objective more than just enjoyment) as an inclusive, participatory method for engaging both institutional actors and MECs in flood resilience.The thesis argues that flood injustice is shaped by cultural assumptions, governance logics, and power relations embedded in flood resilience strategies. It employed a participatory methodology to link MECs’ lived experiences and everyday practices to local authority approaches to flood resilience. Data collection in Hull and Calgary (August 2022–August 2023) included twelve walking interviews, twelve key informant interviews, and a novel serious game—the ‘Just’ Flood Resilience Co-op (JFRC)—co-developed specifically for this study. Using a mixed-methods approach, the JFRC game generated qualitative and quantitative data from seven pilot sessions; 19 in-game discussions, logs, and debrief interviews; 73 post-game and 13 follow-up surveys. Participants included 25 MEC residents, 72 practitioners, academics, and policymakers, and 32 community group representatives across the two cities.Findings reveal that urban flood resilience for MECs is culturally produced through spatial, social, and political dynamics shaped by governance and cultural meaning-making. Both Hull and Calgary are exposed to recurrent, multi-source flooding; Hull primarily from tidal and surface water flooding driven by factors such as its low-lying topography and impermeable urban surfaces, while Calgary faces riverine flooding driven by factors such as snowmelt and extreme rainfall in the Bow and Elbow River basins. Despite these differing hydrological risks, both local authorities reproduce exclusion through dominant, universalising framings, market-oriented constraints, and siloed decision-making. While Hull’s approach to flood resilience is largely constrained by austerity and fragmented institutional responsibilities, Calgary adopts a more integrated yet technocratic approach. The JFRC game proved valuable for surfacing justice issues, though its transformative impact depended on how justice was embedded in practice.In developing and testing the game, this thesis contributes a novel framework for analysing the cultural production of justice in urban flood resilience, offers comparative insights from Hull and Calgary, and identifies key barriers to just resilience. It concludes that addressing the cultural production of flood injustices requires policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to rethink how resilience is conceptualised, operationalised, and governed. This reframing must move beyond technical and individualised framings to recognise resilience as a socially and culturally embedded process shaped by power and justice in place.