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Island Lives, Ocean States
One Ocean Week

Ocean Talanoa: Cross-cultural storytelling from the Pacific

Ocean Talanoa is a One Ocean Week event that brings together Pacific and Norwegian university students to discuss and reflect upon the critical value of cross-cultural dialogue in multidisciplinary approaches to ocean, climate and sustainability. Join us in the harbour of Bergen onboard Vision of the Fjords on Wednesday 19 April at 20:00.

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This One Ocean Week event invites to a conversation about how cross-cultural perspectives can benefit our collective responses to the pressing global ocean challenges in times of climate and environmental crisis. In 2022, as part of Statsraad Lehmkuhl’s One Ocean Expedition, the University of Bergen (UiB) and the University of the South Pacific (USP) worked together to implement a three-week student exchange programme in Fiji waters, allowing 28 USP students to join onboard the ship to participate in the interdisciplinary SDG200 (Ocean-Climate-Society) course hosted by UiB. During those weeks, students from a wide array of Pacific Island countries sailed and navigated the eastern waters of Fiji together with European students, whilst critically discussing contemporary issues of ocean and climate science, politics, sustainability and diplomacy through the storytelling practice of talanoa: a Pacific way of engaging and sharing insights, in which topics are often linked to people’s own identity, history, knowledge and visions for the future.

Join us onboard the high-tech electric vessel Vision of the Fjords (at Bryggen) on Wednesday 19 April 20:00 to learn more about the practice of talanoa and to meet students from Fiji and Norway who participated together in the expedition on the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. There will also be a premiere screening of the film documentary made during the intercultural voyage in Fiji.

Organised by
Island Lives, OceanStates (OceanStates)
The University of Bergen (UiB)

PROGRAMME

  • Welcome and introductory note by Edvard Hviding (UiB)
  • Dialogue on the UiB and USP partnership with Lillian Fuata (USP) and Edvard Hviding (UiB)
  • Film screening of the Ocean Talanoa documentary, with introduction by film producer Benjamin Wheeler.
  • Panel discussion with Ocean Talanoa participants Bernadette Tunidau (USP), Ozayr Akbar (USP), Andreas Octavio Navarro Nes (UiO) and Vilde Helene Takla (UiB). Moderated by Milla Vaha (USP).