Reclaiming Heritage: Using Digital Storymapping for Organising Community Counter-Narratives

Management and Organisation Studies scholars are increasingly called to re-evaluate their research practices in response to decolonial approaches to epistemic knowledge. This chapter presents a collaborative research initiative that explores how digital storytelling and mapping can support decolonial knowledge production. Focusing on communities in the Ilha de Moçambique corridor, the study investigates how local actors reclaim heritage, challenge colonial narratives, and articulate counter-histories through participatory and creative methods. The project involved co-developing digital resources with community members, including oral histories and place-based narratives, to form a walkable, open-air social museum. These counter-narratives were shaped by diverse storytellers—healers, elders, and community leaders—who transformed spaces, artefacts, and rituals into expressions of cultural meaning. The chapter introduces a methodological inquiry into how digital mapping can empower marginalised communities to reflect on identity and share their stories across geographical borders. It argues for a shift in the researcher’s role from interpreter to facilitator, emphasising the importance of reflexivity, positionality, and epistemic justice. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that decolonial research requires rethinking power relations in the field and enabling autochthonous communities to narrate their own past, present, and future.