Wayfinding and decolonising time

[Excerpt] How do we make sense of time? How might we conceptualise it so that we can loosen its grasp on us, and reposition narrow performances of time in a less dominant location? In this chapter we critique narratives of our everyday social practices of academic time. These stories are carried by a mix of indigenous Fijian talanoa ways of knowing, of time, and of critical autoethnography.

There is a strong activist dimension to talanoa. Talanoa, as we understand it (and as will be elaborated upon later in this chapter) is about positioning and connecting through culturally, based social interaction. Importantly, we see talanoa as a way to question pseudo-objective approaches to knowing, and advocate alternative ways of occupying academia. Talanoa endorses the activis't nature. of research by framing autoethnographic writing as an "interpretive, critical, performative qualitative research method and way of being and doing .. .in the lives of those who daily experience social inequities and injustices" (Holman Jones, 2019, p. 527). We are mindful that as we engage in critical autoethnography that rests within a rich indigenous Fijian and broader Pacific heritage, we are engaging in research as an "ethical praxis" (Holman Jones, 2016, p. 228). Our talanoa is always a value-laden act, and as we engage in relationship building, we make a statement about ourselves and what we regard as significant.