A most important principle governing any relationship among Tongans is reciprocity. This is the sharing of resources and information between members for the benefit of the whole community. When the researcher prepared food for the participants, he was practicing fe’inasi’aki (reciprocity). This was to thank them for participating in the focus group. The participants also asked the researcher for another talanoa session to inform them of the NCEA frameworks and to discuss issues relating to their children’s education further. A faikava session was undertaken so the researcher could give back something to his participants even before the findings of the study could be fed back. The researcher also made clear his intention to report back to the Tongan community and schools with his study results.
When the male participants asked the moderator for another session of talanoa to clarify NCEA to them, the moderator felt obliged to do so because it is an expected obligation for him. He has asked the community for their time which they have given him so now it was his turn to give back to the community.
Challenges of Talanoa
When employing talanoa as a research instrument, the researcher should invest considerable time over several sessions in order to cover the research agenda. At times, the talanoa may turn or deviate from the researcher’s agenda, deadlines and priorities. However, the researcher allows for these digressions because it is respectful to allow them to happen, and it helps with the rhythm and the flow of talanoa. Trust, respect and integrity are important underpinning values if talanoa is to happen well.
In formal gatherings, there is a shift from the everyday Tongan language to a metaphorical level of communication called heliaki. This therefore created an additional challenge, as considerable insider knowledge is required to correctly interpret the heliaki used by people in social gatherings like the funeral, wedding or birthday celebrations. It is doubtful that a lot of Tongans would be able to make appropriate interpretations without this knowledge. It is also doubtful that non-Tongan researchers reading the English transcript would be able to make appropriate interpretations without this knowledge.
Heliaki means to say one thing but mean another, and it requires skill based on cultural
knowledge to carry out. Heliaki is manifested in metaphor and layers of meaning and is developed by skirting a subject and approaching it repeatedly from different point of views. Encoding hidden meanings and unravelling them layer by layer until they can be understood requires considerable creative skill and imagination.
Pacific-Asian Education 51 Conclusion
There is no doubt that talanoa is a research method that is culturally sensitive and recognises the participants’ social relationship as an appropriate context for collecting data. For this study, while the process of collecting the data was slower, talanoa provided an arena where the researcher and his participants’ engaged as equals.
In summary, the following research principles were fulfilled by talanoa. The principle of building relationship between researcher and the researched was observed. Establishing equality between all the stakeholders of the research was achieved. The appropriate confidentiality was established and cultural practices were always paramount over the research agenda. Meaningful engagement with the participants was an integral part of the research which include respecting the participants’ as individuals as well as members of social groups. It also includes respecting the participants’ language.
Because the researcher had competency in the Tongan culture, this ensured cultural protocols related to the research were observed; for example, reciprocity, communality and collaboration. Also, understanding that talanoa has no enforced, artificial and arbitrary boundary helped the success of the focus group discussions.
Talanoa, when used effectively, will provide important data for researchers. It may
be time-consuming but researchers need to ensure there is adequate time in the planning stage of the data collecting process. When carefully prepared and undertaken, however,
talanoa has the potential to provide in-depth information in a relatively reasonable
period of time. The validity of the results also will be high, although there may be questions about the reliability of data due to chance artefacts associated with using a small number of participants. It is, therefore, the prime responsibility of the researcher to create procedures to ensure reliability.
For this study, the information and data collected was of high quality because the whole process of talanoa was conducted in a familiar setting observing all the appropriate cultural practices of the participants. Without observing the research principles above, the process of collecting valid data of sufficient quality and quantity might not have occurred.
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