My research focuses on disaster narratives, specifically around volcanic activity. Through lived experience and interaction with volcanism, communities develop strong cultural ties to the landscape and a heterogeneous local disaster knowledge, which may be shared in narrative or story form. An understanding of these knowledges is crucial to both effective volcanic risk management and building of relationships between disaster managers and communities. By completing a systematic review of existing literature around disaster storytelling and ethnographic research within a specific community, I hope to build upon existing academic work around local disaster knowledges and contribute to a decolonisation of disaster research.