Emergent injustices: An evolution of disaster justice in Indonesia’s mud volcano

Since first erupting in 2006, the Lapindo mud volcano has become the most controversial and expensive disaster in Indonesian history. Despite its unique geophysical features, most consider the mudflow a social disaster, as scientific conflicts about the cause of the disaster have spun into legal disputes over accountability and justice. Interestingly, questions about justice—from establishing what justice means to disaster victims to implementing plans for achieving justice—have evolved over time, with many stakeholders connecting the mud volcano to injustices that predate its eruption. Drawing on the interconnected histories of disaster governance and victim protest occurring in the aftermath of the Lapindo disaster, this article foregrounds three features of justice politics that raise practical challenges for stakeholders seeking equitable resolutions to injustices that have been caused or aggravated by disastrous events: socionatural (human-environmental) complexity, historicity, and immanence. This article argues that a richer account of these features of justice not only could prevent many of the problems that continue to divide disaster officials and mudflow victims in Sidoarjo by establishing common ground for practical collaboration and communication between stakeholders, but also animate broader discussions around disaster justice as a pivotal set of ideas and practices that determine outcomes during periods of crisis