Navigating Gendered Relational Spaces in Talanoa: Centring Gender in Talanoa Research Methodology

Abstract

Talanoa is a research methodology that foregrounds Pacific cultural values and acknowledges the importance of the positioning of researchers and participants in the research space. Researchers are encouraged to consider how their social characteristics, such as their gendered social positioning, shape their interactions with participants. Scholarship that carefully examines the significance of positionality, and approaches research with Pacific people from a Pacific epistemological stance, provides critical conceptual and practical guidance. In this paper, as a married Samoan mother and early career researcher in the social sciences, I reflect on gendered relational spaces in one-on-one talanoa with Pacific mothers and fathers.

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Journal of New Zealand Studies NS33 (2021), 83-93 https://doi.org/10.26686/jnzs.iNS33.7384
Navigating Gendered Relational Spaces in Talanoa: Centring
Gender in Talanoa Research Methodology
Moeata Keil
Abstract
Talanoa is a research methodology that foregrounds Pacific cultural values and acknowledges
the importance of the positioning of researchers and participants in the research space.
Researchers are encouraged to consider how their social characteristics, such as their gendered
social positioning, shape their interactions with participants. Scholarship that carefully
examines the significance of positionality, and approaches research with Pacific people from a
Pacific epistemological stance, provides critical conceptual and practical guidance. In this
paper, as a married Samoan mother and early career researcher in the social sciences, I reflect
on gendered relational spaces in one-on-one talanoa with Pacific mothers and fathers.
Introduction
Pacific research methodologies emerged in response to the marginalisation and silencing of
Pacific voices and perspectives in research.
1
The advances made by feminist scholars in
recognising and creating qualitative and inclusive research aided the establishment of Pacific
research methodologies and emphasised the value of understanding those involved in research
from within their own social, gendered, and cultural contexts.
2
In the same way that feminist
methodological researchers have critiqued traditionally privileged positivist research as being
a highly masculinised mode of knowledge production,
3
scholars such as Gegeo and Watson-
Gegeo argue that much research with Pacific people and cultures has been done by “outside
researchers” who have their own accompanying theoretical and methodological constructs that
they have used to make sense of Pacific people and cultures.
4
In considering epistemology, Vaioleti argues that “[r]esearchers whose knowing is derived
from Western origins are unlikely to have values and lived realities that allow understanding
of issues pertaining to knowledge and ways of being that originate from [people living
in] . . . Sāmoa, Tonga, Fiji, Tuvalu or the other Pacific nations.”
5
Thus, research methodologies
that were designed to identify and explore issues in a Western context are not necessarily useful
for identifying issues within diverse Pacific communities and cultures. In response, Pacific
scholars have created and cultivated Pacific methodological spaces that recognise the value of
giving a Pacific voice to Pacific ways of seeing, knowing, being and doing. Such spaces
emphasise the significance of approaching, understanding, and interpreting Pacific people’s
lives and experiences from within their own cultural contexts and worldviews.
6
In this paper, I analytically reflect on and discuss my use of the talanoa research methodology
and the accompanying method of one-on-one talanoa. Talanoa stems from Pacific oral
traditions of producing, sharing and transferring knowledge through conversations and talk.
7
Central to talanoa is the foregrounding of Pacific cultural values and relationality that
acknowledges the significance of the positionalities of researchers and participants in shaping
talanoa and the research space more generally. Current scholarship examines the significance
of positionality and approaching research with Pacific people and communities from a Pacific
epistemological stance, offering conceptual and practical advice and guidance on how
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researchers might navigate the vā or relational space between themselves and participants.
8
As
Vaioleti and others assert, Pacific participants act differently in talanoa depending on both their
own and the researcher’s social characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, cultural rank,
and community standing.
9
Pacific researchers are therefore encouraged to consider and be
cognisant of how the social characteristics of both researchers and participants shape and
impact the quality of the talanoa.
Given the significance of positionality, it is important that I situate and acknowledge my
position: I am a thirty-five-year-old married Samoan woman, mother and early career
researcher in the social sciences. My husband is Samoan/Māori and together we have two
children, a seven-year-old son and a thirteen-year-old daughter. I was born and raised in Sāmoa,
in the villages of Vaimea, Moamoa and Afiamalu, and moved to Aotearoa–New Zealand in
2003 to pursue a tertiary education. My doctoral research explored separated heterosexual
Pacific parents’ experiences of family life following parental separation, with ten mothers and
five fathers. The mothers and fathers who participated in my research were ethnically diverse:
four mothers identified as Samoan/Pālāgi,
10
two as Samoan, one as Tongan, one as Cook Island
Māori, one as Tongan/Māori and one as Samoan/Fijian/Māori. Of the five fathers, four
identified as Samoan and one as Samoan/Pālāgi.
How researchers traverse and negotiate the gendered relational space that exists between
themselves and their participants in the research space, however, is an underexplored area of
research. Vaioleti argues that in Pacific cultures, to be cognisant of gendered relations, bodies,
and dynamics between men and women is to be aware of the vā tapu, or the spiritually and
culturally embedded sacred and often restricted relations between men and women.
11
Vaioleti
asserts that to do research in the relational space of vā tapu requires drawing on culturally
appropriate practices and responsive interventions that mediate and in essence neutralise the
relational space that exists between men and women so that they become noa or neutral, thereby
enabling talanoa between men and women.
12
However, there is an absence in the literature of
discussion on how researchers using talanoa engage in the practice of making gendered
relational interactions and spaces noa, and whether the gendered relational space can be made
noa. The current scholarship suggests that the vā tapu between men and women is so absolute
that it requires researchers to only engage in talanoa with those of their same gender.
13
The
idea is that for the researchers and participants to achieve a fruitful, engaging, meaningful, and
authentic talanoa, women should talanoa with women, and men with men. The implication is
that researchers should not transgress these gendered relations and dynamics in talanoa, as
doing so might impact the integrity and quality of the talanoa and consequently, the data
derived. Considering the nuanced and close attention that talanoa plays to positionality and
Pacific research values, in this paper, I analytically reflect on how I negotiated and traversed
the relational gendered space in my one-one-one talanoa with the Pacific men and women who
took part in my doctoral research. The following section establishes the context of my
examination by outlining talanoa as a research methodology and highlighting the absence of
clarity and guidance around navigating gendered positionings, relations and spaces in talanoa.
Talanoa Research Methodology
Talanoa is an established research methodology that has been deployed in a variety of Pacific
research contexts in Aotearoa–New Zealand and abroad.
14
Drawing on Churchward’s Tongan
definition, Vaioleti describes talanoa “as a conversation, a talk, an exchange of ideas.”
15
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Talanoa is formulated from two words, “tala” and “noa”: “‘tala’ which means to tell or to talk,
and ‘noa’ which means anything or nothing in particular.”
16
When combined, talanoa is to talk
about anything and nothing in particular. In terms of research methods, talanoa encourages
face-to-face conversations that can be between two people (for example, one-on-one talanoa)
or within a group of people (for example, focus group talanoa). The nature and focus of the
talanoa is determined and shaped by both the researcher and participants, and requires an
understanding of the relationality and connectedness between all those involved in the research
space.
As an approach to research, talanoa moves away from and challenges Western methodological
approaches to research. This gives Pacific people the opportunity to relate their experiences
and lived realities in their own words, and, significantly, in an environment and space that
values and understands diverse Pacific cultural protocols, practices, and worldviews.
17
Talanoa
can be viewed as one way to integrate the diverse Pacific epistemologies and cultural principles
and practices with academic knowledge production processes across the Pacific. Talanoa offers
the possibility of working in culturally appropriate ways that facilitate research with diverse
Pacific people and allows for a more authentic portrayal of diverse Pacific peoples’ experiences
than that obtained from Western research methods.
18
Talanoa is, as Vaioleti notes, “a personal
encounter where people story their issues, their realities and aspirations. It allows for more
moʻoni (pure, real, authentic) information to be available for Pacific research.”
19
Although such
an approach is similar to feminist intersectional and decolonoial approaches to research and, as
Vaioleti notes, narrative interviews, talanoa is founded on fostering a relational space and
necessitates the cultural connectedness between researchers and participants as co-constructors
of knowledge and research.
20
Vaioleti lists five ʻulungaanga faka-Tonga (Tongan cultural principles) that can be applied in
other contexts and are necessary for cultivating the vā or relational space between researchers
and participants, and for engaging in talanoa.
21
These include: fakaʻapaʻapa (being respectful
and humble); anga lelei (being generous, kind and calm); mateuteu (being well prepared,
hardworking, culturally versed, professional); poto he anga (knowing what to do and doing it
well); and ʻofa feʻunga (showing appropriate compassion, empathy, and love for the context).
Vaioleti emphasises the centrality of these cultural principles in research protocols, which
allow for a respectful and ethical engagement with and between Pacific people.
22
Significantly, these cultural protocols and practices are not simply superficial cultural rituals.
Rather, they are central to ensuring research quality. To elaborate, the depth and quality of the
data gathered from the research is highly dependent on the relationship between the researcher
and participants.
23
Adhering to cultural protocols within talanoa strengthens the relationship
between the researcher and participant, and consequently the quality of the data derived from
the talanoa. Without these values at the core of research design and implementation, researchers
risk engaging in a talanoa that is characterised by the researcher asking questions and
participants providing short and simple responses, or the talanoa being short in duration, or the
participant withdrawing from the study altogether.
24
However, once the relationship between
the researcher and participant has been developed, quality will be added to the research in terms
of the participant wanting to have an in-depth talanoa and, reciprocally, the researcher not
wanting to let down participants with whom they have developed a relationship. Thus, when
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doing talanoa, an “ethic of care” is required that acknowledges researchers and participants as
co-constructors of knowledge, and that demonstrates respect for participants’ time and talk.
25
The literature on talanoa, however, is silent on how researchers using talanoa might traverse
gendered relational spaces. Questions remain about how researchers might draw on culturally
appropriate and responsive principles and practices that enable them to cultivate the vā,
including vā tapu (or relational space, including, the gendered relational space) between
researchers and participants, or how researchers can cultivate connectedness across transversals
of gendered sociocultural positionings and spaces. The following section begins with a
discussion of the ways I cultivated and navigated the vā (relational space) with the men and
women in my research, before moving on to discuss the differential and gendered approaches
I took with Pacific mothers and fathers. The forthcoming sections also demonstrate the
overlapping nature and dimensions of methodology and method, where the philosophical
underpinnings of why we do what we do in research shapes how and what we do in research.
Cultivating the Vā (Relational Space)
Fostering the relational space and enacting an ethic of care meant recognising that although
participants had volunteered to take part in my research, I could not go into the talanoa
expecting participants to simply respond to my questions. Practicing and understanding the
notion of mateuteu (being culturally versed) and pote he anga (knowing what to do and doing
it well) meant understanding that finding out about participants’ lived experiences, and
engaging in a genuine talanoa, hinged on my willingness to invest my personal identity.
26
By
investing one’s personal identity, experience and biography in the relationship (rather than
expecting participants to share their lives, stories and experiences), researchers and participants
are able to build rapport with one another,
27
thus creating a relationship of trust and reciprocity
that encourages an openness to talanoa.
28
In doing so, the talanoa can be conducted as more of
a free-flowing conversation as opposed to a “question and answer” mode of talking, with the
burden of talanoa laid on participants.
In an effort to build rapport as well as create a sense of affinity and connectedness that
acknowledges and cultivates the vā (relational space) between us, we spent time talking about
our experiences prior to asking any research-related questions. Because I am Samoan and all
the participants were of a Pacific ethnicity, we usually started our talanoa by talking about our
island heritage. For example, where we came from in the Pacific and what brought us to
Aotearoa–New Zealand. I told them about my children and shared some of my parenting
experiences, challenges and aspirations. Given that my research explored separated
heterosexual Pacific mothers’ and fathers’ experiences of post-separation familial life and that
I was interested in their parenting experiences, I felt that it was important that I shared with
them stories about my children. I felt that this was important to create a level of trust between
us and also because it conveyed to them that our talanoa was a safe space to disclose intimate
details and stories about our family lives. Moreover, the reciprocal sharing cultivated a
relationship of reciprocity that worked towards minimising any power imbalances and
extractive interview processes, and ensured that we both left the talanoa with a feeling of
knowing one another and each other’s lives. Doing so fostered a sense of connectedness that
showed respect for the relationship and vā (relational space) that existed between us, and also
established a level of trust in how I would use the insights gained from our talanoa.
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As Vaioleti asserts, talanoa is guided by the “cultural operationalization of appropriate ethics”
that emerge from, and are informed by, diverse Pacific worldviews.
29
Part of this cultural
operationalisation of appropriate ethics meant being cognisant of the role that status plays in
structuring social interactions between Pacific peoples. My own experiences, tacit knowledge,
and cultural competency involved recognising social and cultural rank and status that is often
marked in Pacific cultures by age and generation. However, because I was of similar age to my
participants, there were no generational gaps between us (for example, none of the participants
were grandparents or elders in the community), and our talanoa was able to flow more easily
(or less inhibited by age and generational barriers).
Being a Samoan mother doing research with Pacific parents in many ways made me somewhat
of an “insider” in this research.
30
I was an insider because we shared tacit understandings,
experiences, and knowledge of being “Pacific” and also of having children, and thus, being
parents. Below is a brief excerpt from one of the mothers that illustrates this tacit knowing
derived from being a mother:
Moeata: Can you tell me about your evening routines, like from when you get home from
work or school to when the kids go to bed?
Salote
31
: . . . oh, trying to get the kids into bed is so much fun [both laugh]
This short excerpt illustrates how, without saying much, this mother knows that I understand
that she is not being literal about bedtime routines being “fun,” because I have children myself.
Rather, she conveyed through one word—“fun” —the daily struggle of trying to coax children
to bed and keep them there. She later said:
Salote: . . . I start our bedtime routine at around 7pm, but they’re probably not in bed and
asleep until just before 9pm. . . . [They’re] always trying to find ways and reasons to not
go to bed . . . you know, “I’m hungry. I need to pee.” Can I have a this or a that. . . . Oh,
you know their lists go on and on.
Moeata: Ah yes, I do, my kids are exactly the same.
Salote: Parenting is so much fun [both laugh].
However, this tacit knowing was also derived from having similar Pacific cultural values,
understandings, and experiences. There was a felt knowing, sharing, and understanding of each
other’s worldviews, meanings, and experiences. To give you an example from one of the
fathers in my study:
Moeata: How important is it to you for your children to spend time with their extended
family on both sides?
Tavita: Well, that’s a question . . . I don’t think I’ve thought about it like that. Yeah,
important, but you know Island families, do they have a choice? [both laugh]. . . . There’s
always something going on in the family, you know what it’s like, faʻalavelave i ʻī,
faʻalavelave i ʻō [important family/cultural events here, important family/cultural events
there].
This father, like most other participants, recognised and acknowledged that I could relate to his
own experiences of doing family in Pacific cultures, and he demonstrates this by saying, “you
know what it’s like.” In the excerpts shared above, laughter was not so much about humour,
but rather a way of showing and reaffirming shared understandings and experiences. As such,
laughing, and more importantly, laughing at the right moment, demonstrated and conveyed a
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level of shared knowing and understanding of each other’s experiences and thus fostered the
relational space between us. However, how this relational space was traversed changed
depending on whether I was in talanoa with men or women. The discussion that follows
explores how I navigated the gendered relational space in my talanoa with men and women.
Navigating the Gendered Vā (Relational Space)
In an effort to build “culturally appropriate and respectful relationships” with participants, I
approached and conducted my talanoa with the men in my study differently from my talanoa
with the women.
32
The “cultural operationalization of appropriate ethics” in my research
involved an awareness and acknowledgment of the role of gender in structuring and shaping
my interactions and talanoa with participants, particularly with the men in my study.
33
In the
sections below, I share my experiences and reflections as well as anxieties over how I navigated
these gendered relational spaces, revealing the importance of having delicate cultural
knowledge and engaging in reflexive research praxis.
34
As previously discussed, the social
characteristics of the researcher and participant shapes and impacts the quality of the talanoa,
including how the talanoa is organised and approached.
With the women in my study, the date, time, and physical location of our talanoa was arranged
according to their preferences. We met at a range of different times and places that best suited
them, including evenings in their homes, places of work, cafés, and public playgrounds. Some
of the women brought their children, while others did not. I chatted and played with their
children, and on a few occasions, I watched their children while they stepped away to the
restroom or to retrieve something from another room. We built rapport almost effortlessly; it
happened organically through our reciprocal sharing of our life stories and journeys. There
were so many points of identification and sameness based on sharing a similar ethnic and
gendered identity, being similar in age and being mothers. As a result, I was aware of the
gendered dynamics at play—there were none that transgressed sociocultural norms, values, and
expectations—because our interaction and the vā (relational space) between us was noa.
To put it another way, there were no cultural restrictions or prescriptions on how we should
navigate the gendered space between us. The gendered interaction and relationship was not
inhibited by vā tapu as it was already defaulted as noa. As such, the cultural principles that
Vaioleti asserts are necessary for cultivating the vā (relational space) and engaging in talanoa
were mobilised almost non-reflexively and derived from tacit knowing, having, and sharing
Pacific cultural values and ways of moving and being gendered in the world.
35
As a result, our
talanoa flowed as a talanoa between friends, where once rapport was built, we talked, shared,
laughed, and often cried together.
Although I shared similar cultural values, understandings and experiences of being Pacific and
a parent with the men in my study, I understood that I could not approach the talanoa with the
men in the same way that I did with the women. For this reason, when it came time to arrange
a day, time, and location to meet, I could not approach it open-endedly like I did with women.
With the men, to demonstrate care, respect, and to safeguard the relational gendered space
between us (so as to not assume that their voluntary participation created a noa gendered
relational space), I initiated our exchanges about meeting by suggesting that we meet at a café
in an area that was convenient for them, or at their or my place of work. I did this to avoid an
invitation of meeting at their home or some other private space and also to quell any possible
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weariness on their part, as well as my own anxiety, about engaging in a woman-and-man
talanoa.
Worthy of highlighting is that my anxiety was not derived from a fear over my physical safety
(as my participants were not known to me); it was more a desire to ensure that we did not meet
and talanoa in a private space that might create too intimate an environment between me and
the men in my research. The invitation to meet, and consequently meeting in a public space,
operated as a means through which I exercised poto he anga (knowing what to do and doing it
well). In this context, it meant knowing what to do to acknowledge and maintain the vā tapu
that conditioned our interactions and existed between us in the gendered relational space and
relationship of feagaiga or the sacred covenant articulated as a respectful bond and distance
between a brother and sister, informing gendered relations between men and women in Samoan
contexts and cultures. This was particularly important given that all of the men in my study
were also Samoan.
To manage the woman-to-man gendered dynamics and gendered relational space in our
talanoa, it was important that I set the tone of, and context for, the meeting and our one-on-one
talanoa. Part of how I did this was by making sure that I arrived 20 minutes early to our talanoa
and that I had the necessary research items visible on the table in front of me, such as the
participant information sheet, consent form, pen, and paper. Although I was bound by formal
university ethics requirements to present and discuss these items with participants, they were
also used as props that facilitated context for our talanoa. Faʻavae et al, however, notes how
such documents and forms operate as a hindrance to building relationships and engaging in
talanoa with the Tongan men who participated in their study, a sentiment that I also found to
be true in my talanoa with the women in my study.
36
The commonality between the experiences
of Faʻavae et al. and my own was that in these instances (where research documents hindered
talanoa), we were in talanoa with participants of the same gender as the researcher. However,
demonstrating poto he anga (knowing what to do) in the gendered relational space and a
relationship of feagaiga meant recognising that what worked with the women in my study (and
the men in the study by Faʻavae et al.) could not form the basis of the approach I undertook
with the men in my study (or in woman-to-man talanoa). Thus, for the men and I to engage in
a talanoa and respectfully navigate the vā tapu, the research context could not be removed from
our interactions, nor could the relationship be made noa. Rather, our interactions needed to be
focused and oriented around the research.
As I discussed earlier, with the women in my study, once we established a rapport, the research
context of our talanoa seemed to disappear and we could freely and openly engage in talanoa
as friends. When I presented the participant information sheet and the consent form, the women
were largely uninterested in the documents and more interested in getting to know me, as a
Samoan/Pacific woman and mother and then as a Samoan/Pacific researcher. The men,
however, closely examined the participant information sheet and the consent form. Unlike with
women, the rapport building in my talanoa with men focused on me as a Samoan/Pacific
researcher and the research project more generally, and then as a Pacific person who was born
and raised in Sāmoa. On reflection, when I think about the different ways that the women and
men and I built rapport and trust, even in terms of how they engaged with the participant
information sheet and the consent form, I realise that it was not just me reflexively managing
the gendered relational space and vā tapu with the men in my study. Rather, the men in my
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study were also actively engaged in managing the gendered relational space and safeguarding
our relationship of feagaiga. Thus, the men and I were both enacting and practicing mateuteu
of being well prepared, culturally versed and professional and poto he anga (knowing what to
do and doing it well). In particular, focusing on the research context for me, and I imagine for
the men in my study too, operated as a form of boundary construction and maintenance work,
or relational work, that cemented the context for our meeting, interaction and talk, thereby
enabling our talanoa to proceed.
Further, managing the gendered relational space and demonstrating poto he anga meant
managing my physical appearance and gendered body. I ensured that I presented myself in
culturally appropriate gendered ways by dressing conservatively and professionally, not
wearing make-up and having my hair tied in a bun. I also had to manage the extent to which I
demonstrated ʻofa feʻunga of showing appropriate compassion, empathy and love and anga
lelei (being generous and kind) in our talanoa. I was constantly reflecting throughout our
talanoa on how my words, questions, emotions and actions might be conveyed, interpreted or
misinterpreted. For example, when the women in my study showed emotions and feelings of
pain, sadness, hurt or shame, I showed compassion, empathy and love for the situation by
reassuring them with words, touching their arm or holding their hand. However, with the men
in my study, in similar situations, I could not demonstrate the same level of compassion or
empathy, nor could I close the physical space between us. Instead, I offered words or
expressions of empathy and compassion for the context. Part of practicing mateuteu, of being
culturally versed in these instances, meant reflexively and continuously being aware of and
managing the gendered relational dynamics in culturally appropriate and respectful ways.
Although I wanted to build a rapport that enabled a good conversation with the men in my
study, I did not and could not build too much rapport or too strong of a sense of familiarity that
removed the research context from our interaction. Instead, the research context needed to
remain in focus as it created the context for our interaction and talanoa. Thinking about how I
consciously and reflexively navigated the gendered relational space that existed between me
and the men in my study, this meant towing a line between relationship building and boundary
maintenance. Drawing on Iosefa and Aiga Ethics Komiti’s tapasā mo aiga, or family compass
framework for doing research, my talanoa with men drew on Samoan principles of soalaupule
that works towards empowering equitable dialogue between people, and fealoaloaʻi by
ensuring that dignified boundaries were maintained to protect and safeguard the vā tapu and
the integrity of our talanoa.
37
Vaioleti suggests that for talanoa between men and women to occur the relational space and vā
tapu must be made noa (neutral).
38
In my research context, however, part of enacting mateuteu
and poto he anga meant ensuring the reverse: taking precautions to not make noa or neutralise
the gendered relational space between myself and the men in my study. In an effort to engage
in a fruitful and respectful talanoa with the men in my study, it meant engaging in a talanoa
that remained in, and maintained, the space of vā tapu. As such, it was about ensuring that I
was always aware, cognisant of, and responsive to, the gendered relational space between us.
Put differently, to engage in a culturally appropriate and responsive talanoa between women
and men meant interacting in the relational vā tapu space.
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Approaching and conducting the talanoa with men differently from how I did with women did
not diminish the overall quality of the data derived from my talanoa with men. I imagine that
the men who took part in my research had many reservations about partaking in my research
and doing talanoa with a woman researcher, which might have been why none of them objected
to meeting in a public space or suggested an alternative location. It is my hope that I
demonstrated throughout the talanoa, particularly for the men in my study, the principle of
fakaʻapaʻapa or respect for the relationship and created, in a culturally appropriate way, a space
for men to share their stories and engage in research. The fact that these men opted to participate
in my research and that we were able to engage in a talanoa that covered a range of issues
related to post-separation family life, even if it was not as emotionally laden as it was with
women, demonstrates that researchers can cultivate connectedness across transversals of
gendered sociocultural positionings and spaces, and thus traverse gendered relational spaces in
talanoa.
Concluding Comments
In this paper, I work through questions about how and whether Pacific researchers can
genuinely and meaningfully engage in a “woman-to-man” talanoa, while still adhering to and
being guided by cultural principles, protocols and practices. While undertaking my doctoral
research (with woman-to-woman and woman-to-man talanoa), I often questioned whether I
was authentically engaging in talanoa, or whether my research could be genuinely considered
talanoa because I transgressed the gendered relational space through my talanoa with men. I
sought advice and guidance from the literature, but the issue of gender was largely sidelined
and cautioned as being in the realm of vā tapu.
I sought counsel from my aiga (family), particularly my mother and older brothers, and they
offered advice and encouraged me, as a tamaʻitaʻi Sāmoa (daughter of Sāmoa) working in
academia, to be confident in my aganuʻu Sāmoa (Samoan culture) to be able to know and
discern the appropriate actions, timings and cues of the talanoa and how it should be conducted
in the research space. This paper offers insights into how Pacific women and researchers, while
being guided by cultural principles and engaging in reflexive research praxis, can navigate and
negotiate the gendered relational space while employing talanoa as a research methodology
and method. It is both a response to, and echo of, the sentiments of Faʻavae et al., of hoping to
“raise questions for conversation about the complexities of putting talanoa into research
practice.”
39
It also speaks to the call made by Suaaliʻi-Sauni and Fuli-Aiolupotea for Pacific
researchers to “talk and write explicitly about their experiences” in an effort to further sharpen
talanoa as research methodology and method.
40
My experiences and reflections, as well as my
anxieties as a budding researcher, demonstrates the need for more research that focuses on
gendered social relations in the research space. This article carefully examines and documents
my experiences as a way to show how researchers and participants can traverse the gendered
relational space between men and women in culturally appropriate and responsive ways.
1
See Melani Anae, “Pacific Research Methodologies and Relational Ethics,” in Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Education, ed. George Noblit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); Elise Huffer
and Ropate Qalo, “Have We Been Thinking Upside-down? The Contemporary Emergence of Pacific
Theoretical Thought,” Contemporary Pacific 16, no. 1 (2004): 87–116; Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni and
Saunimaa Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research, Building Pacific Research Communities
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and Developing Pacific Research Tools: The Case of the Talanoa and the Faafaletui in Samoa,” Asia
Pacific Viewpoint 55, no. 3 (2014): 331–44; Timote Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology: A
Developing Position on Pacific Research,” Waikato Journal of Education 12 (2006): 21–34; and
Timote Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology from Phenomenology,
Narrative, Kaupapa Māori and Feminist Methodologies,” Te Reo 56–57 (2013): 191–212.
2
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology.”
3
See Patricia Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2000); Patricia Collins, “Black Feminist Thought as
Oppositional Knowledge,” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 5, no. 3 (2016): 133–44;
Sharlene Hesse Biber, “Feminist Research: Exploring, Interrogating, and Transforming the
Interconnections of Epistemology, Methodology, and Method,” in Handbook of Feminist Research:
Theory and Praxis, ed. Sharlene Hesse Biber (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012) , 2–26; and
Andrea Doucet and Natasha Mauthner, “Feminist Methodologies and Epistemology” in Twenty-first
Century Sociology, ed. Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications,
2007), 211–36.
4
David Gegeo and Karen Watson-Gegeo, “‘How We Know’: Kwaraʻae Rural Villagers Doing
Indigenous Epistemology,” The Contemporary Pacific 13, no. 1 (2001): 58.
5
Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology,” 22.
6
See Huffer and Qalo, “Have We Been Thinking Upside-down?”; Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea,
“Decolonising Pacific Research”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa:
Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology”; and Timote Vaioleti, “Talanoa, Manulua and
Founga Ako: Frameworks for Using Enduring Tongan Educational Ideas for Education in Aotearoa
New Zealand” (PhD thesis, University of Waikato, 2011).
7
See Semisi Prescott, “Using Talanoa in Pacific Business Research in New Zealand: Experiences
with Tongan Entrepreneurs,” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 4, no. 1
(2008): 127–48; Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the
Talanoa Research Methodology.”
8
David Faʻavae, Alison Jones and Linitā Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa – Talking about Talanoa:
Some Dilemmas of a Novice Researcher,” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous
Peoples 12, no. 2 (2016): 138–50; Moʻale ʻOtunuku, “Talanoa: How Can It Be Used Effectively as an
Indigenous Research Methodology with Tongan People?” Pacific–Asian Education Journal 23, no. 2
(2011): 43–52; Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the
Talanoa Research Methodology”; and Vaioleti, “Talanoa, Manulua and Founga Ako.”
9
See Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology”; Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e
Talanoa”; ʻOtunuku, “Talanoa.”
10
Pālāgi is a Samoan term used to describe a person of typically European descent. Although
originating from Sāmoa, it has gained widespread use across the Pacific, including in Aotearoa–New
Zealand. A Samoan term is being used here and in other places, because the mothers and fathers who
participated in my study themselves used this word to describe their European ancestry.
11
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology.” In this paper, the terms and
phrases Pacific, Pacific people and Pacific cultures are not intended to imply homogeneity between
different Island nations, people or cultures (Anae et al., 2001). Instead, it acknowledges shared
geography and shared aspects of cultural norms and practices, while still signifying the diversity and
heterogeneity in people, culture and language (Koloto and Kataonga, 2007).
12
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,” 196.
13
Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa”; ʻOtunuku, “Talanoa”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa:
Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology.”
14
Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa”; Prescott, “Using Talanoa in Pacific
Business Research”; Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research.”
15
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,” 192.
16
ʻOtunuku, “Talanoa,” 45.
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Journal of New Zealand Studies NS33 (2021), 83-93 https://doi.org/10.26686/jnzs.iNS33.7384
17
Setsuo Otsuka, “Talanoa Research: Culturally Appropriate Research Design in Fiji,” Proceedings of
the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) International Education Research
Conference: Creative Dissent-Constructive Solutions (Melbourne, VIC: AARE, 2006),
https://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2005/ots05506.pdf; Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating
the Talanoa Research Methodology.”
18
Prescott, “Using Talanoa in Pacific Business Research”; Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea,
“Decolonising Pacific Research”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research
Methodology,” 192.
19
Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology,” 30–31.
20
Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique
of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti-racist Politics,” University of Chicago
Legal Forum 1, no. 8 (1989): 139–67; Collins, Black Feminist Thought; Collins, “Black Feminist
Thought as Oppositional Knowledge”; Marìa Lugones, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism,” Hypatia
25, no. 4 (2010): 742–59: Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,”
192.
21
Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology,” 30–31.
22
Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology”; Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa
Research Methodology.”
23
Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research.”
24
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,” 192.
25
Alexandra Allan, “Feminist Perspectives on Qualitative Educational Research,” in Handbook of
Qualitative Research in Education, ed. Sara Delamont (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2012), 92–116;
Okusitino Māhina, “Tā, Vā, and Moana: Temporality, Spatiality, and Indigeneity,” Pacific Studies 33,
no. 2/3 (2010): 168–202; Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research”; Arcia
Tecun, ʻInoke Hafoka, Lavinia ʻUluʻave and Moana ʻUluʻave-Hafoka, “Talanoa: Tongan
Epistemology and Indigenous Research Method,” AlterNative: An International Journal of
Indigenous Peoples 14, no. 2 (2018): 156–63.
26
Tēvita O. Kaʻili, “Tauhi Vā: Nurturing Tongan Sociospatial Ties in Maui and Beyond,”
Contemporary Pacific 17, no. 1 (2005): 83–114.
27
Jo Fletcher et al., “Pasifika Students: Teachers and Parents Voice Their Perceptions of What
Provides Supports and Barriers to Pasifika Students’ Achievement in Literacy and Learning,”
Teaching and Teacher Education 25, no. 1 (2009): 24–33.
28
David Faʻavae, “Negotiating the Vā: The Self in Relation to Others and Navigating the Multiple
Spaces as a New Zealand-raised Tongan Male,” in Questions of Culture in Autoethnography, ed.
Phiona Stanley and Greg Vass (Abington: Routledge, 2018), 57–68.
29
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,” 208.
30
Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa”; Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo, “How We
Know.”
31
All names shared are participant pseudonyms.
32
Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research,” 335.
33
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology,” 208.
34
Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research.”
35
Vaioleti, “Talanoa Research Methodology.”
36
Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa.”
37
Fetaui Iosefa and Aiga Ethics Komiti, “Wayfinding with Aiga (Family): Aigia Saili Manuia: Family
in (Re)search of Peace,” in Wayfinding and Critical Ethnography, ed. Fetaui Iosefa (New York:
Routledge, 2021), 38–52.
38
Vaioleti, “Talanoa: Differentiating the Talanoa Research Methodology.”
39
Faʻavae, Jones and Manuʻatu, “Talanoaʻi ʻa e Talanoa,” 147.
40
Suaalii-Sauni and Fulu-Aiolupotea, “Decolonising Pacific Research,” 335.
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