Flood risks can stem from var­i­ous caus­es and exhib­it dis­tinct char­ac­ter­is­tics that shape the way they are gov­erned. Depend­ing on flood risk char­ac­ter­is­tics, spe­cif­ic poli­cies are designed and organ­i­sa­tions are involved. In Indone­sia, like in oth­er regions, organ­i­sa­tion­al divi­sions are made for coastal floods, flu­vial floods, and plu­vial floods (result­ing from tides, rivers, and rain, respec­tive­ly).

The Indone­sian cities of Man­a­do and Pon­tianak both face recur­ring floods. How­ev­er, the char­ac­ter­is­tics of and respons­es to these floods are dif­fer­ent, with con­se­quences for dis­trib­u­tive, pro­ce­dur­al, as well as recog­ni­tion jus­tice in those cities. In line with Fras­er, we define recog­ni­tion jus­tice in rela­tion to three forms of mis­recog­ni­tion: cul­tur­al dom­i­na­tion, dis­re­spect, and non-recog­ni­tion, with exam­ples from Man­a­do and Pon­tianak.

We show that the mis­recog­ni­tion of cer­tain types of floods over­laps and inter­acts with the non-recog­ni­tion of low-income infor­mal set­tle­ments, dis­re­spect and stereo­typ­ing of res­i­dents of these areas, and a lack of atten­tive­ness to the cul­ture, liveli­hoods, and prac­tices of peo­ple who live along­side rivers.

In this way, we exam­ine the land­scape of recog­ni­tion jus­tice in the event of flood­ing in an urban con­text, draw­ing on qual­i­ta­tive inter­view data gath­ered from the cities of Man­a­do and Pon­tianak.

The fol­low­ing ques­tions are con­sid­ered: Who expe­ri­ences mis­recog­ni­tion? By whom is this mis­recog­ni­tion per­pe­trat­ed? At which lev­el (insti­tu­tion­al frame­works or laws, imple­men­ta­tion, or social prac­tices), and what are the result­ing con­se­quences of this mis­recog­ni­tion?

Final­ly, we explore the inter­ac­tions between dif­fer­ent forms of mis­recog­ni­tion, which cre­ate a foun­da­tion for fur­ther dis­tri­b­u­tion­al and pro­ce­dur­al injus­tices.