Stories and storytelling processes to support river knowledge and practice

Introduction

Despite enormous expenditure, river restoration initiatives are yet to deliver sustainable management outcomes in biophysical, socio-economic and cultural terms (Bernhardt et al., 2005; Christian-Smith and Merenlender, 2010; Stewart-Harawira, 2020). All too often, prescriptive and narrowly defined approaches fail to capture unique attributes and values of individual river systems (Doyle et al., 2013; Hilderbrand et al., 2005; Kondolf et al., 2001; Lave, 2009). If management efforts are to meet social and cultural aspirations, nuanced understandings of local values are required to support management applications. Perhaps inevitably, diverse value sets fashion social constructions of nature and the ways conservation and restoration are imagined (e.g. Boelens et al., 2023; Chan et al., 2016; Eden et al., 2000; Tadaki et al., 2017). Indeed, the etymology of the word ‘river’ has the same root as ‘rivals’; the Latin noun ‘rivalis’ refers to those who use the same stream as a source of water (Cresswell, 2021). The intent, purpose and meaning of restoration, and the approach taken to enact it, are inherently value-laden, deeply contextual and often highly contested, as particular mindsets and values underpin the generation and use of knowledge to achieve particular purposes (Hikuroa et al., 2021; Hillman, 2009; Pascual et al., 2023; Tadaki et al., 2017). Here, we explore the use of river stories as a method to understand and express local knowledges to support management practices.

Holistic approaches to river management traverse boundaries between knowledge types (political, biophysical, social, cultural and economic), interweaving community and institutional perspectives (Horacio-Garcia et al., 2021; Koppes, 2022; Murphy et al., 2022). In Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) ¹ this entails working ‘across worlds’, at the interface of mātauranga Māori and western knowledge frameworks (Salmond, 2014). Multiple ongoing reforms shape the drive for co-management and co-governance of water and rivers in ANZ (e.g. Harmsworth et al., 2016; Hikuroa et al., 2021; Te Aho, 2019). Concerns for phronesis, place-based knowledges developed through experiences and cultural values (Hillman, 2009), present a generative platform to develop new practices that incorporate Māori relations to (being part of) river systems (e.g. Parsons et al., 2021; Stewart-Harawira, 2020).

Storywork is an integral part of indigenous knowledge practices (Archibald, 2008), sharing knowledge about a particular place. Lyotard (1994) noted how anthropological fieldwork represents both a scientific ‘laboratory’ and a personal ‘rite of passage’, an impossible attempt to amalgamate objective and subjective practices through intersubjective dialogue, translation and projection. For some time, the impossibility was hidden by marginalising the intersubjective components of the fieldwork, relegating understandings to nothing more than prefaces and anecdotes. Today, however, what had previously been seen as interpretative accounts are now afforded recognition as a form of allegory (a story, poem or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning), from which complex and truthful accounts can be unearthed. As spoken allegory, stories are susceptible to contestation. However, as a written version with a basis in fieldwork and observations, they form a story among stories that builds towards a wider story.

From this perspective, we build upon how stories provide a valuable tool to document complex, truthful accounts of scientific phenomena. They can be used to characterise the diversity and changing nature of socio-cultural meanings and relations to rivers in space and time (e.g. Coates, 2013; Desfor and Keil, 2000; Parkes, 2022; Wessell, 2021). Sharing and cross-referencing stories presents a basis to get closer to notional ‘truths’ (Kelly, 2017; Lyotard, 1994). In an Australasian context, stories include settler histories of colonial relations to rivers (e.g. Mander, 1974; Robertson et al., 2000; Wessell, 2021) and anti-colonial perspectives expressed through more-than-human voicing experiments (e.g. Wintoneak and Blaise, 2022). As river stories build upon ancestral and personal interactions with rivers, they reflect local values, meanings and aspirations. Reflecting upon these place-based relations, Larsen and Johnson (2016: 158) suggest that ‘Places contribute to storyscapes such that “the entire land [is] like a living geography text and history book in one”’ (citing Ihimaera, 1986: 103). Here we explore how river stories express place-based values, meanings and knowledges for the Waimatā catchment on the East Coast of ANZ (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Waimatā catchment map with notable landmarks labelled (left). Gisborne City is located at the river mouth (bottom right). Waimatā River has a concave-upwards long profile with recurrent tributary inputs, and it flows within a relatively narrow, terrace-constrained valley (top right). Long profile and valley width derived using data sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licenced for reuse under the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Waimatā catchment setting

The Waimatā River drains a catchment area of 228 km² (Figure 1). Emerging from the Raukumara Ranges, the river readily conveys water, sediment and logs (slash) from deeply dissected, highly erodible headwaters through terrace-constrained flume-like reaches in mid-catchment to the narrow coastal plain at Gisborne (Fuller et al., 2023). Average annual rainfall ranges from 1800 mm yr^-1 in the headwaters to 1000 mm yr^-1 on the coastal flats. Short-duration, high-intensity rainfall events from tropical cyclones trigger significant floods and landslide activity.

The East Coast region of ANZ has a continuous history of Māori settlement and land use since the 14th century (Figure 2). Early Māori settlements in lowland areas around Tūranganui River and Waikanae Stream used local resources for mahinga kai (gathering of natural food resources) and established gardens along Taruheru Stream, clearing areas of native forest to around 250 m above sea level (Coombes, 2000). The Waimatā River provided a transport route and a shared resource among various hapū and iwi (Māori family groupings and tribes, respectively) (Coombes, 2000; Clapham, n.d.).

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Figure 2.

Environmental history of Waimatā Catchment and adjacent areas (after Coombes, 2000; Salmond et al., 2022; Spedding et al., 2006).

Initial interactions between Europeans and Māori on the East Cape in October 1769 were violent. Te Maro, a Ngāti Oneone (a local Māori tribal group) rangatira (a person of high rank or highly esteemed), was shot by some of James Cook’s men from the Endeavour expedition at the mouth of the Waimatā (Tūranganui River on Figure 1). Although tensions remained high in the years that followed, European settlers assimilated into local society over the next 100 years (Salmond et al., 2022; Spedding, 2006). By 1911 the population of Gisborne was approximately 8,000, reaching approximately 47,000 in 2018 (Coombes, 2000; StatsNZ, 2018).

The river has continuously played a central role in cultural, commercial and recreational activities in the region. Contemporary relations to and knowledge of the catchment are deeply etched within the local community’s ways of being (Cairns et al., 2024). As experienced across much of ANZ, European settlers reshaped landscapes to fit the European ideal of productive landscapes and waterscapes, displacing Māori knowledge (mātauranga) of the land and freshwater (Hikuroa et al., 2021; Knight, 2016; Parsons et al., 2021). Contemporary land cover in the catchment comprises a mixture of well-established exotic species–pasture for agriculture, pines (Pinus radiata) for silviculture and a range of trees and shrubs for lifestyle blocks (a rural residential property). Native vegetation is now restricted to around 15% of the catchment. Sheep and beef farming is the dominant land use in Waimatā catchment, along with exotic pine plantation forest, making up around 49% and 20% of the catchment area, respectively. To date, lessons learnt from the devastating impacts of Cyclone Bola in 1988 are yet to be translated into effective relief programmes following similarly devastating cyclonic storms in 2022 and 2023 (Figure 3; Fuller et al., 2023; Marden and Seymour, 2022; see, also, Thomas et al., 2025a, 2025b). The Waimatā Catchment Restoration Project (WCRP), established in 2020, promotes and applies participatory approaches to achieve catchment-scale conservation, recreation and community education outcomes, working towards the common goal of a healthier Waimatā River (Cairns et al., 2024). Specific emphasis is placed on programmes to address poor water quality and flooding and erosion problems (Figure 3; Cairns et al., 2024; Salmond et al., 2019; Waimatā-Pakarae Catchment Plan, 2022).

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Figure 3.

Restoration practices in Waimatā Catchment. A. Revegetation programmes orchestrated through Waimatā Catchment Restoration Project (image from WCRP). B. Recent storms devastated many sites along the river (image from Megan Thomas).

Storytelling as method

Increasingly sophisticated approaches to qualitative and quantitative research now incorporate storytelling as a part of information-gathering practices (e.g. Gallagher, 2011; Pluye and Hong, 2014). Stories can help to communicate complex phenomena and transmit new or existing knowledge. However, the telling of stories can be audience specific. Simplified messaging may omit or overlook various complexities and assumptions. Misinterpretation as a result of judgement or bias may promote disengagement and loss of trust (Bamberg, 2012). In their analysis of the use of stories to supplement scientific enquiry in steps to address the declining state of aquatic ecosystems in ANZ, Doehring et al. (2024) highlight the importance of trusted messengers as restoration knowledge brokers in rural catchment communities. Inevitably, stories are unable to capture and communicate all relevant information, with associated concerns for emphasis of key messages and intonation (Bamberg, 2012). However, a journalistic approach to storytelling can aid science communication (Krzywinski and Cairo, 2013).

In light of these caveats, the approach to storytelling applied in this study is considered to generate indicative rather than representative results. No attempt is made to achieve saturation or exhaustion in the range of relations to rivers expressed through stories in the region. Semi-structured interviews were chosen to elicit stories, as they provide a common starting focus in conversations about the river, allowing participants to lead discussions in the directions they desired (Dowling et al., 2016; Hitchings and Latham, 2020). Interviewees were selected based on them living and engaging daily with the river. Interviews lasted between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours, conducted in spaces decided by each participant to ensure they were comfortable in their surroundings (i.e. their home, next to the river, indoors or outdoors; Adams-Hutcheson and Longhurst, 2017). In this way, each participant was able to draw on their surroundings to further explain their stories and knowledge, sharing insights that express what is important to them, at a level of detail they desired (Dowling et al., 2016; Hitchings and Latham, 2020; Merriam, 2009). A series of recurrent themes was used to prompt interviewees to reflect upon their experiences through river- and catchment-based stories (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Interview questions and rationales.

Question	Rationale for question
In what ways is the Waimatā important to you?	Allows participants to express what social, cultural and biophysical aspects of the catchment they hold in high regard.
Do you think catchment management plans are a good idea?	Allow participants to address their perspectives on the catchment’s social, cultural and biophysical attributes and how they could be included in Catchment Management Plans. They also identify why their priorities have or have not been included in Catchment Management Plans, helping reveal barriers to applying multiple knowledges and values in Catchment Management Plans.
How do we ensure that catchment management plans incorporate things that are important to you?
Could river stories be a good mechanism to incorporate things that matter?	Builds on the previous three questions to identify how and why stories could support Catchment Management Plans. By asking this question last, participants can utilise previous answers to frame their perspectives on stories and their utility for Catchment Management Plans.

The ten participants were selected through initial recruitment with community group leaders, followed by snowballing procedures that included potentially interested parties that had not previously been considered (Crang, 2002). Participants were not categorised by ethnicity and were unintentionally of various ages and genders. The study did not specifically collect this information as it was not deemed central to the focus of study. Instead, focus was placed on the participant’s perspective upon their knowledge. Participants ranged from landowners to river recreationalists and included people that live and frequent the catchment for a variety of reasons including work, social engagements, family and friendships. Tenures of participants within the catchment ranged from inter-generational associations to associations that are developing (< 10 years). Interviews were recorded and transcribed using the Zoom video conferencing software. Manual revision of transcripts was used to ensure accuracy, accounting for colloquial, cultural and slang terms which were not effectively transcribed. Transcripts were sent to participants to either alter or confirm that the content was correct.

Figure 4 presents a summary representation of methodological steps applied in this research. This iterative process allowed reflection of what each portion of the transcript meant, both in isolation and as part of all interviews. Our structural and dialogical analyses focused on holistic narratives, contextualising stories derived from sections of the interview as part of over-arching, bigger-picture relations and understandings. Analysis focused on content over form, emphasising what was conveyed through stories to a greater degree than how stories were delivered (Bamberg, 2012; Frank, 2002).

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Figure 4.

Iterative process for the analysis of stories collected during interviews.

Analysis techniques let the interview data stand for themselves as far as possible, striving to retain expressions of local knowledges and attachments to place and space without being altered by our (the researchers) perspectives (Taylor, 1991). Keywords from each interview were identified using NVivo – a computer software programme that allows researchers to manage, analyse and visualise qualitative data and documents systematically and individually. This provided the initial basis for thematic coding. An iterative process was applied to group together codeword results to derive more general, recurring categories (themes) for analysis (e.g. Braun and Clarke, 2006; Coffey and Atkinson, 1996; Cope, 2009). Key words and themes extracted from transcripts were considered in wider context with the text preceding and following the portion of text where the key word or theme appeared. This allowed the intent of the text to be identified rather than the key words being taken out of context.

Following Rose (1997), we (the researchers) took a stance as an ‘outsider’ to the catchment that was researching ‘insiders’, who understand and observe catchment changes constantly (Herod, 1999). We remained reflexive to social, political and cultural cues while conducting interviews and writing up the results and how this may shape our discussion.

Despite our efforts to remain critically reflexive about the underlying assumptions in the conduct of this work, our perspectives are both informed and limited by our positionality. We (the researchers) have a background in physical geography, with a specific focus on fluvial geomorphology and earth system sciences. Despite our efforts, we acknowledge that we become the lens through which the meanings of stories have been woven together in this study. As far as practicable, we endeavoured to promote a transparent and authentic interviewing process to ensure participants knew what their responses meant for the research and the broader discussion of environmental management in the catchment (Thomas and Harden, 2008). In this light, in presenting the results we strive to use the voice of participants themselves to express and communicate their river stories. We present our findings as a series of anecdotes that highlight and reflect ‘things that matter’ to participants, striving to provide insights into how such issues and relations came to be and how they are envisaged to permeate into the future (Bamberg, 2012). Collectively, this presents a form of portal into how the catchment is ‘known’ and ‘made’. Following Earthy and Cronin (2008) and Fauzan (2016), we focus on four key threads: The theme and premise (the things that matter); The backstory of exposition (the stories being told); The conflict (why things that matter have not yet been addressed) and The context and setting (how and why the narrative or story is told and who it impacts or intends to impact).

Results

Nuanced perspectives and knowledges expressed in interviews reflect diverse relations to the Waimatā River, highlighting rich insights into socio-cultural connections and generational change. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts indicates high levels of motivation and concern among interviewees to have a voice in restoration activities in Waimatā Catchment. Indeed, the depth and breadth of engagement with the research presented challenges in expressing and summarising findings in ways that did justice to the knowledge and insight expressed by participants. Multiple layers of stories reveal how different circles of influence do and do not interweave.

Structural analysis of the interview transcripts identified three main types of narrative or story that have slightly different intents and appeal to different audiences. First, informal conversations about firsthand experiences provided a natural and accessible communication pathway to target and engage practitioners. Second, existing publications (documented experiences, primary, secondary or ancestral) communicated stories about past successes and failures from governing bodies and national audiences of interest (other catchment groups or community groups)., fictional stories based on true events or phenomena had wide appeal to all ages of audience, primarily targeting children and future generations.

Discussion and concluding comment: Stories as method

Ways of knowing entail concerns for product and process – what is known and how knowledge is derived and used. Stories provide a mechanism to express local ways of being (values, meanings), ways of knowing (plural methods that create place-based understandings) and ways of doing (engagement, participation and adaptive management). The interview process also created space for participants to reflect critically on the value and limits of their own stories. Rather than merely recounting experiences of the river, interviewees considered what their narratives could and could not accomplish, thinking about the work their stories do in shaping collective understandings. In doing so, they moved beyond presenting stories as isolated nodes of expertness and instead became active participants in the ongoing reiteration and reworking of river narratives. Findings from this study show how river stories reveal rich veins of knowledge that run through the Waimatā Catchment. They express common concerns for the condition of the system and aspirations to enhance its health.

Locally led approaches to adaptive management, stewardship and guardianship build directly on people’s attitudes and behaviours (Murphy et al., 2022; Yocum, 2014). Spatially heterogeneous value sets reflect the diverse needs of multiple communities along a river’s course (Lliso et al., 2022; Maca-Millán et al., 2021). Participants interviewed in this study highlighted concerns for the appropriateness of insights derived elsewhere to manage ‘their’ river system. The use of storytelling as method presents opportunities to better incorporate local (phronetic) knowledges within management practices (Hillman, 2009), helping to transform the participation process from ‘being informed’ to ‘being an informer’. Such approaches to shared learning extend beyond traditional consultation models and more formalised approaches to stakeholder engagement, participation and negotiation. It is not just the use of river stories, but the emergent reflectivity and reassessment of the storytellers, that can help bridge knowledge and communication gaps in collaborative approaches to decision-making, helping to build social capital and trust, thereby supporting locally-driven management practices that engage more broadly with multiple perspectives, demographics and cultures (e.g. Hillman, 2009; Krueger et al., 2016; Mould et al., 2021; Robertson et al., 2000). Such interactions are integral parts of river co-learning arenas (de Souza et al., 2025; see, also, Brierley et al., 2025).

Storytelling and storylistening provide mechanisms to understand and in some instances regain and add to meanings that have been marginalised or excluded over time (Murveit et al., 2023). Stories can be used to explain complex phenomena and share knowledge across generations. This compelling pedagogical tool can help to reimagine river restoration and associated ‘constructions of nature’ in ways that engage directly with, and build explicitly upon, local knowledges (Eden et al., 2000). Used effectively, the rich tapestries of understanding expressed through river stories provide a way to incorporate local knowledges within the fabric of river management (after Koppes, 2022).

River stories can be considered as ‘data with a soul’ (Brown, 2015) – living forms of stored knowledge that reflect particular recollections of values, behaviours and environmental traits (Lobo and Kindon, 2021). As stories incorporate elements of intrigue, surprise and suspense, they engage listeners in sense-making, unravelling meanings while reflecting upon the motivations and actions that drive conflict in the story. For example, participants in this study highlighted parallels between the power of stories to weave settler and indigenous histories and value sets and relations between technical knowledge, scientific knowledge and place-based knowledge.

In the Waimatā Catchment and Aotearoa New Zealand generally, concerns for ora (collective wellbeing) seek to re-embed Māori presence in the landscape through flourishing relationships that live generatively with living rivers (Moko-Painting et al., 2023). This entails coming together through wananga – an expression of collective responsibility that strives to be at one – physically and metaphorically – the river and community as one (Moko-Painting et al., 2023). Prospectively, crafting and telling stories from the perspective of the river itself can help to shift focus from what needs to be done to the river to what the river needs to maintain its wellbeing (Salmond et al., 2019).