Continuing to Talanoa: storytelling dialogues for youth engagement in climate action and justice

Abstract This article recounts a classroom application of a dialogue, story-telling process used at COPs beginning in 2017. In that year, the Fijian President of the United Nations climate summit, COP23 in Bonn, proposed the entire assembly use his nation’s Talanoa Dialogue process for building ambition for national commitments to the Paris Agreement. When youth, women’s and Indigenous voices were heard in unprecedented ways, many committed to continuing the practice. A florescence of the Asian-Pacific-inspired, conflict-resolution storytelling and dialogue practice ensued, with some continuing for years afterward. This paper recounts eight rounds of varied Talanoa Dialogues employed in higher education contexts. Purposes ranged from internal team-building, to forging community partnerships, to serving as vehicles for youth representation in international contexts like climate COPs. All dialogues nonetheless prioritized listening, recording, and representation through ethnographic, anthropological lenses. These experiences support recommendations to (1) Create chances for youth to listen empathetically to the stories of others in ways attentive to varied national, ethnic and other intersectional (e.g. gendered, class-based) social locations, expanding their awareness and linking their affective and intellectual selves; (2) Make opportunities for youth to voice their own stories and perspectives on climate challenges and work, considering their developmental trajectories in intergenerational contexts, while emphasizing the need to “scale” from individual through global dimensions; (3) Explore the implications of borrowing from exogenous cultural traditions, considering what factors may render this relatively legitimate, as opposed to appropriative. I explore particularities of the cultural origins of Talanoa Dialogues, which mediate hierarchy and egalitarianism, arguing that this function is especially apt for navigating conundrums of youth leadership and so-called “youth-washing.”