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of internal and external pressures; analyzed possible roles that NGOs could
play to tackle the challenges; and discussed possibilities for future collaboration
among participants. At the end, we adopted the Yaeyama 10 Declaration
to conclude the forum.
Prior to the forum, conflict between the executive director and me was
not evident, although I understood his scepticism, which was reasonable
from his point of view. I intentionally avoided confronting him in the time
leading up to the forum: if he exercised his authority to freeze the project,
all our efforts to host the forum would be in vain, and the people concerned
would feel betrayed. Completion of the forum relieved me – I had
kept my promises to both the Ishigaki islanders and the study group members.
For the executive director, however, the forum provided the impetus for
decisive action against me based on my performance. He called me to his
office and questioned me, blamed me and the other study group members
for our incompetence, and informed me of my salary cut starting from the
next month due to my poor performance – for which, according to him,
MOFA was laughing at me.
I asked him to attend our study group meeting, raise his concerns to the
members, and discuss the project frankly, because research activities naturally
involve a continuous process of trial and error. Unfortunately, he left
FASID to become an ambassador 11 after a few months without attending
our meeting. Although I was not satisfied with the way I was treated by the
executive director as an individual and FASID as an organization, I was
satisfied that I was accountable to the study group members as well as the
Ishigaki islanders. The study group members could learn both from sharing
opportunities with the islanders and from collaborative processes that we
undertook for preparing the forum. We produced a final report for MOFA
(Suzuki, 2001 a) to conclude the research project.
Lessons for practitioners
The above account of project processes can deepen our understanding of
the relationship between dialogue and the actions of practitioners. First, a
practitioner should recognize that dialogue is influenced to a great extent
by project context. Second, a practitioner must take the different and sometimes
conflicting interests of stakeholders into account when he or she seeks
dialogue in action. Third, a practitioner has opportunities to make critical
10 As Ishigaki island is one of Yaeyama islands that share a distinctive social and cultural background,
we called the forum the Yaeyama Forum.
11 All previous executive directors of FASID came from MOFA to work for a couple of years
before they were assigned ambassadorial positions. Having little incentive to work for an organization
that did not appreciate my performance, I also left FASID and started teaching at a university.