Storytelling as a methodology for decolonising transport: insights from Banjarmasin

This article positions storytelling as both a method and a stance for advancing decolonial perspectives in urban transport research, using the case of Banjarmasin’s inland waterway transport (kelotok) system. Mainstream transport research frameworks often privilege technical efficiency, ridership figures, and cost-effectiveness, leaving little space for local narratives, embodied knowledge, and cultural meaning. This study challenges that paradigm by showing how storytelling, a participant-led and multi-sensory process, can surface the social, cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of everyday mobility. Fieldwork took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning remotely through WhatsApp calls and online exchanges, then moving to in-person engagements once travel became possible. Storytelling allowed kelotok drivers to guide the conversation, blending personal memories with collective histories, and revealing motivations that extend beyond economic survival to include sustaining cultural heritage, intergenerational pride, ecological stewardship, and community resilience. These insights emerged through iterative listening and sustained relational engagement, illustrating how storytelling can disrupt technocratic narratives and knowledge systems, this study contributes to the growing movement to decolonise transport scholarship and calls for methodological plurality in understanding mobility systems of the Global South.