Paper Short Abstract:

Using video and autoethnography, this study applies vā, a Pacific concept of relational space, to examine how Indigenous or place-based languages can influence decolonial approaches to (re)shaping human and more-than-human relationships in coastal landscapes.

Paper Abstract:

Language shapes how we view and interact with the world. While many Global North narratives retain colonial dualisms, Pacific cultures often perceive in-between spaces not as voids but as relational dimensions that transcend binary notions of space and time. In Samoan, Tongan, and Niuean cultures, vā describes relational, emotional, and metaphysical connections. Samoan writer Albert Wendt defines vā as ‘the space between all things which defines and makes us a part of the unity that is all’ (quoted in Va‘ai 1999: 46). Grounded in wa Thiong’o’s directive to first decolonise the mind, we undertake this autoethnographic study to challenge ourselves, as scholars from the Global North, to (re)view landscape through an Indigenous language lens. In doing so, we explore how language shapes landscape, thus collapsing the perceived boundaries around the objects of Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies. In allyship with Indigenous and decolonial scholars, we pioneer a multi-modal, co-creational methodology. Each author first explores and analyses a natural space, observing the semiotic elements present. After engaging with scholarship on the concept of vā, we revisit the same space to record video reflections, documenting shifts in perception as well as insights into the space between the co-authors. Through collaborative analysis of these audiovisual encounters, we reveal new relational aspects of the landscape made visible through vā. This innovative methodology offers empirical evidence of how place-based languages can alter how non-Indigenous people perceive landscapes, and offers a model for fostering transnational and remote collaborations by connecting with and through our local ecologies.