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Dr Fujinaga-Gordon: My dedication to documenting the Ikema dialect of Miyako language began when I first started working with speakers in 2013. Over the years, they have become much more than research collaborators, they are like family to me. They have seen me grow from a poor & ignorant graduate student into a faculty member and researcher; they’ve met my husband and children, and I know their families, too. Every time I return to the island, they welcome me with warmth, and I keep in touch by sending postcards each year. Our relationship has deepened in ways that go far beyond a work relationship. The idea for documenting nigai, sacred prayers performed by priestesses, emerged quite organically during my 2024 fieldwork. I was conducting my usual linguistic elicitation sessions with speakers when one of them, a former head priestess, said to me:

This suggestion changed the direction of my research. It was a gentle reminder that documentation should serve the community’s priorities and values, not just academic interests. When I was first trained in language documentation, I often felt uneasy about some of the underlying assumptions in the field. I remember being told that I needed to “control my speakers” and “get the data I need.” At the time, I couldn’t articulate why that felt wrong, but it stayed with me for years. Those approaches, rooted in extractive and colonial models of research, made me question my role and responsibilities as an outsider, especially as a Japanese researcher studying an Okinawan language shaped by Japan’s own history of colonization. Now, as a faculty member, I am in a position of power that comes with both privilege and responsibility. I want to use that position to do research that is more intentional, less invasive, and genuinely collaborative. I may never fully belong to the community, and I will always be an outsider linguistically and culturally. But I can strive to act in solidarity, to help restore trust, to ensure that documentation benefits the community first, and to use my access to institutional and financial resources in ways that align with their values and priorities. I often think of my department chair, who reminds us that those with privilege or citizenship must advocate for those without. I find that idea very powerful. Even if we can’t fully understand the experiences of historically marginalized communities, we can still stand beside them, amplify their voices, and continuously question whether we are doing it ethically and respectfully. That’s what now drives every aspect of my documentation work.

Dr Fujinaga-Gordon: Gift-giving is a deeply important part of fieldwork in the Ikema community, where relationships are built not through formal contracts or financial exchanges, but through gestures of care, reciprocity, and respect. People on the island are often delighted that students and researchers travel from all over the world to study their language and culture. Whether they choose to collaborate or not is another matter, of course, but they are usually intrigued and proud that their language draws such global attention. Since my time as a graduate student, I was told to bring and have brought University T-shirts from the States as small tokens of appreciation. These shirts are received warmly; they represent both the physical distance I travel to reach the island and the idea that their culture is valued by people abroad. Over the years, this has become a lighthearted tradition. More recently, the Dietrich College Dean’s Office generously donated extra T-shirts and university swag, which allowed me to save budget funds and bring other small gifts, like Trader Joe’s eco bags and snacks for younger community members, that were equally well received. At the same time, I have become increasingly self-aware about the symbolism of these exchanges. One moment that really made me reflect was when I saw a child wearing a “University of XXX” T-shirt in a part of the island where few researchers go.

I realized how easily such gifts can unintentionally become markers of academic territory. That realization reminded me to approach these exchanges with more caution. In addition to T-shirts, I often budget for postcards and stamps. Every year, I send personalized postcards with photos of my family. Many recipients display them proudly in their homes, sometimes even near their ancestral altars, alongside offerings and family portraits. It’s incredibly touching and reminds me that these small gestures carry meaning far beyond material value. They embody ongoing relationships of care and mutual recognition that lie at the heart of ethical fieldwork.

Dr Fujinaga-Gordon: One of the biggest challenges I face in this phase of the project is defining what I mean by “community.” I often say my work is for and with the community, but there is no single, unified community. The Ikema-speaking population is spread across three regions - Ikema Island, Sarahama, and Nishihara - and each has its own power dynamics, internal histories, and tensions. Whenever I choose to work with one group or individual, I inevitably risk offending or excluding someone else. The nigai documentation project itself began in the summer of 2024, when a former head priestess from Sarahama approached me during fieldwork and said: “Instead of doing this boring stuff, why don’t you document our prayers?” I had known about nigai for years, but her invitation made me realize that this was the kind of documentation the community truly wanted. Yet the moment I began exploring this direction, new layers of complexity emerged. In Sarahama, for example, the village head asserted that nigai should be under his authority, not the priestesses’, and it seems to me that he resisted our efforts partly to reinforce his power. In Nishihara, where I initially thought collaboration was going well, I later learned that some residents felt their priestess was monopolizing the tradition and disapproved of my partnership with her. On Ikema Island itself, local authorities deliberately misled us about ritual dates and locations, perhaps out of suspicion or simply to maintain control. These experiences made me realize that “the community” is not a single entity but a constantly shifting set of relationships and politics. At a deeper level, I am also grappling with whether the values and ethics I have learned in U.S. academia translate meaningfully into the local Okinawan context. Ethical questions around compensation have also been a source of deep confusion. In this community, offering money can be seen as disrespectful, but refusing to pay also risks reproducing extractive research practices.

One of my longtime consultants became so devoted to working with linguists that he gave up his seasonal job. When I last visited him, I learned that he had been hospitalized with throat cancer. I couldn’t help but feel complicit: we had all benefited from his voice, and now he had literally lost it. These experiences have made my project slower and more complicated, but also more honest. They constantly remind me that ethical research is not about having perfect answers - it is about listening, questioning, and remaining accountable.

Dr Fujinaga-Gordon: Once nigai are documented, my vision is for this work to live first and foremost within the Ikema community itself. The recordings, transcriptions, and translations will be archived in ways that ensure community ownership and cultural safety, using platforms like Mukurtu, which allow local access protocols and metadata structures that reflect cultural authority rather than academic hierarchy. I hope the archive will serve as a resource for younger generations who may not speak the language fluently but want to understand the songs, prayers, and rituals that connect them to their ancestral past. At the same time, I want this documentation to reach the broader academic and linguistic community as an example of what ethical, community-centered research can look like. The nigai project challenges long-held assumptions in linguistics, especially the idea that documentation is primarily about collecting data for scholarly use. Instead, it asks how we might document a living practice that sits at the intersection of language, spirituality, and ecology while respecting the community’s own epistemologies and values.

Dr Fujinaga-Gordon: The most important lesson I have learned is that the humanities are lived through relationships. In the field, every ethical question, every moment of miscommunication, every small gesture of hospitality or misunderstanding becomes part of the research itself. Working on nigai has shown me that research is not just about generating knowledge - it’s about how knowledge is created, shared, and owned. I began this work trained as a linguist who sought accuracy and structure, but I have learned that cultural engagement rarely follows those lines. I’ve had to navigate power struggles between priestesses and village heads, and moments where my presence, despite my best intentions, changed local dynamics. I’ve also had to confront my own positionality as a Japanese researcher studying an Okinawan tradition, aware that Japan’s historical colonization of Okinawa makes me both insider and outsider.

I’ve learned that humanities research must allow room for uncertainty and humility. There are no universal definitions of justice that apply equally across all communities, no fixed templates for ethical engagement, and no single perspective that captures the full complexity of local histories and values.