"Stories Capture the Details.": Centering Narratives in Water-Insecure Communities in the Global South

In this Defining Moments essay, I interrogate the asymmetrical power structures of health communication knowledge production by centering the voice of water-insecure community members in rural West Bengal. Drawing on the anticolonial and necrocapitalist frameworks, I argue that storytelling serves as a radical act of agency against the slow violence of toxic contamination and extractive research practices. I ground this reflection in my own fieldwork, moving beyond the collection of "data points" to recognize participants' health narratives and physical scars as embodied epistemologies. By reflexively examining my uniquely complex positionality as a scholar from the global South navigating the global North academic structures, I advocate for a transformative praxis of epistemic solidarity. This praxis centers local stories from the global South as Defining Moments that are raw, radical, and anticolonial blueprints required to dismantle the coloniality of knowledge (re)production.