Presentation short abstract

This research uses serious gaming to examine how queer urban communities navigate flood vulnerability through informal support and mutual aid, offering a feminist critique of institutional adaptation and climate injustice.

Presentation long abstract

This study explores how LGBTQ+ communities in Hull, UK, navigate flood vulnerability through a feminist, Butlerian lens that reconceptualizes vulnerability not as weakness but as a condition of interdependence that can foster resilience through mutual aid and solidarity. Using serious gaming as a participatory method, the research engaged queer residents in a co-creative card game to examine how structural inequalities shaped by institutional neglect and exclusionary practices shape flood preparedness, response, and recovery. Findings reveal that informal support networks, distrust in formal authorities, and resource inequities critically influence adaptive capacities. Participants emphasized community-driven care over institutional responses, highlighting how everyday adaptations emerge from shared vulnerability. This research argues for justice-centered flood risk management that recognizes vulnerability as relational and transformative, challenging neoliberal and paternalistic frameworks. It demonstrates the utility of serious gaming as a critical methodology for surfacing marginalized climate narratives and imaginaries, as well as engaging marginalized groups in climate adaptation discourse.