Tālanga: Theorizing a Tongan Mode of Interpretation

Abstract

This article explores an alter-native (that is, to use native insights to alter existing knowledge and modes, and to alter native insights if they tend to serve the interests of colonizers/outsiders rather than the colonized/locals) way of reading the Bible based on the Tongan notion of tālanga, and from the perspective of a Tongan tu'a (commoner). The intention is to contribute in a small way to the ongoing attempt by indigenous scholars to promote a shift from the restrictive tendency of Western scholarship into a more open mode; from one that is dictated by disciplinary questions to another that is shaped by practical questions; from approaches that serve academia to ones that serve the community in which real people live. The term tālanga is herein defined as a way of being and a way of speaking, and thus theorized as a way of reading. Its key elements serve as analytical lenses for a mode of interpretation that aims to be critical and liberating at once.