Abstract Talanoahas been defined as ‘talking about nothing in particular’, ‘chat’ or ‘gossip’. It is within the cultural milieu oftalanoathat knowledge and emotions are shared and new knowledge is generated.Talanoahas recently been taken up by development researchers and others as a culturally appropriate research method inPacific contexts. However,talanoais often treated as synonymous with ‘informal open‐ended interviews’ and tends to gloss over the deep empathic understanding required in such exchanges. Highlighting the connection betweentalanoaand empathy is vital in ensuring that development practitioners and researchers are implicitly aware of the political dimensions, cultural appropriacy and socio‐ecological impact of their research methods. This connection is also critical in illuminating howtalanoaas a method may decolonise research in thePacific, inform the decolonisation of research in other cultural contexts, and contribute to ethical and empowering development policy and practice. We will argue for the merits of what we refer to here as ‘empathic apprenticeship’: an intentional, embodied, emotional, and intersubjective methodology and process between the researcher and the participant. An empathic apprenticeship has the potential to enhance shared understandings between all human beings and is essential iftalanoais intended as a decolonising research methodology.
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