Flooded Futures Exploring sci-fi concepts for future flood-resilient communities

Background

Farah Mendlesohn frames Sci-Fi as ‘an argument with the universe’ and across generations storytellers have asked: ‘What if?’. Sci-Fi narratives help societies explore challenges linked to water and flooding, circumventing ‘issue fatigue’ by engaging imagination and emotion. From Frank Herbert and J.G. Ballard, to Margaret Atwood and Sequoia Nagamatsu, sci-fi resonates with Living Well with Water themes through critical reflections on water cultures, risks and resilience. These include responses to flooding (e.g. through floating homes and flooded cities) alongside ethical dilemmas of adaptation.

Despite the genre’s potential for imagining possible futures and alternative development pathways, it has been undervalued in urban planning and policymaking for coastal cities. The DFA’s interdisciplinary emphasis offers a unique opportunity to conduct exploratory research into sci-fi as a means of knowledge production for envisioning Living Well with Water and pursuing socially and spatially just flood resilient communities from social sciences, arts and humanities perspectives.

Project aims

To investigate sci-fi depictions of flood resilience and analyse their potential place-based contribution to imagining and informing flood resilient coastal communities.

Project objectives

1. Critically review sci-fi depictions of flood resilience
2. Explore creative and literary responses to flood risks through academic literature and community workshops
3. Examine notions of justice and fairness in these imaginings to understand not only what could be, but also what should be in Living Well with Water
4. Analyse how these imaginings can inform socio-spatial planning approaches in coastal communities
5. Develop policy-relevant recommendations.

Methods

Using qualitative and arts-based methods, the research will work with coastal communities and authorities in the Humber and North-West regions. Combining interviews, creative workshops, and policy document analysis, it will engage adults and young people to foster intergenerational dialogues and draw on utopian and dystopian literatures to surface alternative narratives of flood resilience and Living Well with Water.