2006 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 528-542
In this paper, I narrate my experience of ethical difficulties during my three decades of field surveys on Iriomote Island. one of the southernmost islands of Japan, in the prefecture of Okinawa. Although the island is famous for its well-preserved nature such as the Iriomote wild cat and coral reefs, its islanders have suffered from various adversities: severe capital tax systems (1636-1902), tropical fever malaria (until the 1960s) and underpopulation after WWII. When I first visited the island at the age of 23, some islanders told me that they were tired of so-called "researchers," who came to the islands by dozens. Since then, they have continued to tell me, "Researchers, go home! Only those who agree to be our friends are welcome." Then, the question was how a researcher could be a friend of the islanders, while continuing to conduct field surveys among them. Episode 1 in my paper describes a perilous encounter with a drunken islander. He criticized me about my research on ethnoarcheology. He suspected that I stole artifacts buried in the tombs of abandoned villages. I failed to explain him what my research was, but angrily demanded some apologies from him. In reply, he seized a bottle and aimed it at my head so as to strike me down... However, thanks to that quite frank encounter, we became very good friends afterwards, and he helped me in my research of placenames in abandoned villages. Episode 2 deals with my trials to publish ethnographies in the name of local speakers rather than researchers. Former inhabitants of abandoned villages had prepared manuscripts, and my wife and I helped to compile them for publication in three volumes. Then we planned to help an inhabitant of an existing village to do a similar thing with us, and he tried to put some oral traditions of his own family in a manuscript. That caused misunderstanding and frustration among the other villagers, however, because they felt that his manuscript contained non-authentic versions of songs sung during their solemn festivals. They convened a general assembly of the villagers, and I was summoned to explain to them which tradition was more authentic and right. Episode 3 is a record of the endeavors to establish an agricultural cooperative of organic rice farmers in Iriomote. Since the 1980s, the local government forced the rice cultivators of Okinawa to initiate insecticide use in their rice fields. In the 70's, I had studied traditional rice cultivation in Iriomote, and found that its traditional rice varieties and their cultivation systems came from southern islands and Taiwan, and seldom from northern islands, including mainland Japan. I was also afraid of the side-effects of insecticide in Iriomote paddy fields, not just for human beings, but also for endangered species such as the wildcats that feed on the smaller animals living around the paddy fields. In collaboration with a local leader, Kinsei Ishigaki, I held a symposium in Iriomote, inviting some 200 local people, and told them of the dangers of insecticide and the possibilities of commercializing organic rice. The following year, when they organized a cooperative and tried to sell their organic rice directly to consumers, I could not help but become an advisor to them and a voluntary salesman for their rice. Many obstacles surrounded us: hostile public servants, debt collectors, rice dealers, and fraudsters. Business was far more difficult than doing field surveys, and I even made sales pitches for the rice at the annual meeting of the Ethnological Society of Japan when invited to give a speech on research ethics. It took about 15 years until the cooperative finally managed to pay back the rest of their debts. Now some of the islanders regard my family as their relatives. We can learn from these exercises that it is, as a rule, better to refrain from doing business with the persons we study, but also that if we do
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