Talanoa may be described in a number of ways including ‘gossip’ (Brenneis, 1984); an ‘adjudicatory mechanism’ (Arno, 1980); ‘storytelling’ (Halapua, 2003) and a ‘philosophy’ (Halapua, n.d.), ‘epistemology’ (Prescott, 2007); and to ‘chat’ or ‘conversation’ (Geraghty, 1994, p. 144), and to ‘tell stories’ (Cappell, 1968, p. 215).
Informal discussion has always been a powerful research tool for anthropologists. A focus on talanoa provided me with more meaningful narratives. I interpreted these narratives as free expressions of how ecotourism as a development process had impacted on each of my participant’s lives. It is in informal contexts that talanoa was able to transcend some of the protocols in other social contexts which had restricted the speaker’s compulsion to speak freely (or in the words of my participants to ‘talk straight’). As in most other cultures, gossip or chat is commonplace in villages in Fiji. This provides opportunities for people to talk straight when they feel they are not able to in more public talanoa contexts, particularly where tabu or avoidance relationships exist.
Veiwe’ani (avoidance relationships), madua (shyness/manners) and nomo (silence) can prevent individuals and groups from ‘talking straight’ (as locally described). This has been a source of much frustration in Boumā, particularly in attempting to merge business with va’avanua (life lived in line with traditional core values) in the community management of ecotourism initiatives. A Lavena community member explains the difficulty of not being able to ‘talk straight’ in the running of the Lavena project:
Tabu20relationships
between yourself and your uncle in the project can really happen. Your relationship with your uncle is a really serious one.
You can’t talk straight to each other. So when he asks you something, you just say, ‘yes’.
And you just have to say, ‘yes’ all the time
whether you think it is good or not21 .
The inability to ‘talk straight’ in more public forums such as village or project meetings therefore, is addressed, in part, by informal and less public talanoa as an outlet for feelings and desires that may otherwise be impossible to express.
Many writers discuss talanoa as a public form of expression in public fora (e.g. Halapua, 2003, Nabobo-Baba, 2006). However, in the context of this research, I am more interested in talanoa as private informal ‘chat’. Less public forms of talanoa provide opportunities to ‘talk straight’. Thus, in spaces where more private talanoa takes place, ‘conscientizing’ or advancing critical consciousness (Freire, 1968),
20
Avoidance/prohibitive relationships. 21
creativity, and negotiation of new skills, knowledge and values can be played out without the restrictions of veiwe’ani (avoidance relationships). The researcher does not provide these spaces. This happens in Boumā anyway: talanoa is often described as the most popular past-time in Boumā. There were always small groups of people sitting somewhere talking and drinking yaqona or kava or eating together. Yaqona has been described as a ‘soporific intoxicating beverage’ (Aporosa, 2008a, p. 8) which plays a vital cultural role in Fiji: ‘[t]he consumption and cultural practices surrounding yaqona are deeply influenced by va’aturaga (vakaturaga)22 and the respect for others’ (ibid, p.
21). Asesela Ravuvu describes vakaturaga or va’aturaga as ‘ideal behaviour’ including veidokai (respect), vakarokoroko (deference), vakarorogo (attentiveness and compliance), and yalo malua (humbleness) (1983, p. 103). Therefore, yaqona may be a reason to gather for informal talanoa, and facilitates respectful talanoa. It is also another symbol of reciprocation, communality and caring and sharing that central to life in Boumā.
While utilising pre-existing spaces and contexts where participants have the opportunity to talk freely has obvious benefits for the researcher, this also has a potential to benefit the larger community, particularly in the absence of strong chiefly leadership. In addition to multiple opportunities like these for private, group discussions, talanoa also functions as public forum in Boumā23
.
Sometimes, possibly due to madua, I felt some participants were telling me what I wanted to hear. Eventually, I learned to be quite explicit about what I was asking. I asked my participants to ‘speak from their heart’ if they could, while also reminding them that if they could not or did not want to speak from the heart, that was OK too. I told them I would understand and respect that. The response to this new way of requesting information was overwhelming openness and honesty. I often came away feeling privileged that they felt comfortable enough to speak as freely as they did.
22
Toren, C. (1989). Mind, materiality and history: Explorations in Fijian ethnography. London: Routledge.
23
Along with this, however, came a strong feeling of obligation. I would treat that informant and the information they had offered with the utmost respect and anonymity.
All of the statements recorded in this thesis are the product of informal talanoa as ‘discussion’ or ‘chat’ and in some cases ‘gossip’ (involving talk about third parties). However, as Arno (1980) indicated in his research on Yanuyanu gossip, ‘a clear rule of conduct was that locals were not allowed to be party to kakase: talk about a third party that is not true or at least not known to be true’. This was an ‘implicit recognition that gossip, so defined, was too important to the group to be practiced in an idle or irresponsible way’ (p. 359). I could not always guarantee that this rule held true for talanoa in Boumā. However, the content of kakase can also be revealing. As Brenneis (1996) notes, gossip intensifies when there is only partial knowledge of an event and suggests that these ‘speculative fictions provide insights into local views of character, motive and logic’ (p. 42).
Talanoa with me as a palagi researcher transcended avoidance relationships and for some, in time, these encounters became conduits for cathartic expressions of hope. The talanoa I engaged in with those participants I became most familiar with were conducted largely outside of the norms, rules and protocols of the vanua. As I was not a Vanua member, the same rules and protocols did not apply in talanoa with me. This opened up opportunities for the more familiar of my participants to communicate more freely. Nabobo-Baba (2006) noted that because she was a member of the Fijian Vugalei community she studied she was often asked why she was asking questions about knowledge in Vugalei and was treated as showing a level of ignorance. Others asked her why she was pretending she didn’t know the answers to the questions she was asking (p. 31). I did not have to face those same issues. There was no doubt that I was an ignorant palagi (foreigner/visitor). Nabobo-Baba (2006) also states that she came into the field with ‘ancestral baggage’. She was also restricted from talking to some people because of veiwe’ani. I had none of those challenges to contend with. However, as a palagi, I had a larger set of challenges which largely involved a long road of rapport and trust-building and learning how to function in a very different social and
physical environment; learning tovo (custom); and understanding Boumā epistemologies and ontologies.
After a few months of slowly emplacing and then embedding myself and my family and allowing others to facilitate this process, talanoa as opposed to ‘interview’ became more frequent. The talanoa I engaged in took place in a variety of relaxed contexts whether over ti (tea/afternoon or morning tea) and sikoni (scones), or yaqona (kava) or simply during the course of mundane daily activities such as washing, walking, or preparing voivoi (pandanus). Near the end of my research period, people would stop me on the road or as I walked through the village to ask to talk with me. This contrasted with any pre-planned form of ‘interview’. However, with those I came to know well, sitting down specifically to talk about the research also became more relaxed and ‘free-style’. Some of the content of these talanoa (particularly with younger participants) could be described as ‘cheeky’, politically ‘risky’ and full of humour. Others were sombre, anxious, and secretive. They were always two-way conversations though. Occasionally, my participants would ask for my opinions or my experiences on a particular matter. The conversation would flow backward and forward, scattered with interjections, and stalled by long, quiet moments of contemplation (vakanomodi). In this way, my participants and I learned from one another.
I learned to be patient when awaiting a reply from my participants or for them to continue their contribution to the discussions. In the early days of my fieldwork, I thought my participants had chosen to ignore my questions until I realised that silences between utterances in conversations can be surprisingly lengthy. I also came to realise how valuable these silences could be. Nabobo-Baba writes that silence is not empty: ‘there is eloquence in silence… a pedagogy of deep engagement between participants’ (2006, p. 94). At the same time, silence does not necessarily infer agreement or disagreement. When I learned to let the silences happen, a depth of thought, emotion, connection with me, and connection with the content, emerged from it. The pace of
talanoa was indicative of the inter-cultural difference between researcher and participants of something as taken-for-granted as time.
Time
Time is a concept that is referred to throughout this thesis as it is noted that time for Fijians has a different value and meaning than time in Western countries. Few people wear a watch. To live in Boumā is to live in a place where phone contact and public transport is very limited. Successfully making contact with someone I wanted to talk to in a different village often took some effort. When I eventually did make contact and we had both settled on a time and place to meet, I could walk for hours or catch a bus (that I could not return on for the whole afternoon). I did this many times only to find that my participant may be ‘at his teitei’ (plantation) or she may be ‘still out fishing’. This was particularly irritating in the rainy season or when the heat of the sun was unbearable and I had my son with me. Early on in the fieldwork period I took it personally and concluded that they did not really want to speak with me but were too polite to reject my request. At other times, however, they sincerely apologised: they had to visit someone; they forgot; they did not notice the time and then they would set up another meeting time which they would honour. I had to adjust my Western conception of time to a localised, intuitive and fluid conception of time if I was to learn anything in Boumā.
It is normal for the people in Boumā to start a conversation by asking, ‘Have you already eaten?’ or ‘Where are you going?’ Following that, you may be asked how your children, your husband or your host family are or what they are doing. Before interviews start, there is likely to be a long interchange of personal information and a meal (see also Otsuka, 2006; Mo’ungatonga, 2003, cited in Vaioleti, 2003, pp. 3 & 4). This was another of my cultural faux pas as when I first entered the field I was concerned about wasting my participants’ time. For this reason, I tended to run at the interview head on like a ‘bull at a gate’: running roughshod over vanua protocol in the process. Thankfully, the school headmaster was kind enough to correct my behaviour
one day when I visited his house to interview him. If it were not for his advice, I may have insulted a great many more people. Relationships are precious, he reminded me, and relationships take time and nurturing. Therefore, time is an important element in the ongoing processes of fostering healthy social structures in Boumā. The inter- relational, emotive and sharing nature of talanoa begins a long time before the tape- recorder is revealed. It starts when the researcher enters the field in sevusevu and continues when she and her family leaves.