I interview locals who have a long-term connection with the land and water of the Seomjin River basin, focusing on community members whose livelihoods are dependent on the land and water directly.

Indigenous storywork, a methodology that documents how people narrate their lived experiences within Indigenous cultural worlds, can learn from how elders and residents narrate changes to the river, revealing knowledge and practices frequently overlooked in top-down frameworks, whereby government agencies develop policies without substantial community input. By tracing these narratives, my study provides insights directly relevant to environmental policy: it illustrates how infrastructure shapes not only hydrological flows but the social and cultural fabric of affected communities.

Archibald, J.-A., Lee-Morgan, J., & De Santolo, J. (Eds.). (2019). Decolonizing research : Indigenous storywork as methodology. ZED Books, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

As an inheritor of multiracial diasporic lineages, autoethnography supports my intention to resurface ancestral knowledge through listening deeply with(in) my identities, relationship with water, and the hydro-social territory of Jeollanamdo.