His 2025 paper, “The Positionality of ‘I Love Okinawa’: A Critique of Masahiko Kishi” (Hiroshima Shudai Journal, Vol. 66, No. 1), by Koya Nomura, a sociologist of Ryukyuan origin who has previously criticized Japanese people who love Okinawa as unconscious colonialists, is a radical argument faithful to Max Weber’s “warning” to researchers. Weber’s warning is also an ethical question for the present author.
Nomura begins his critique of Kishi’s lack of positionality by highlighting his lack of conceptual depth—specifically, his inability to recognize the question “Who are you?” posed by a worker in Kamagasaki, while on a field survey in Kamagasaki, as anything other than a question of identity. Even after a long time, Kishi’s responses remain limited to representations of identity such as “undergraduate student,” “sociologist,” “activist,” “skinny, pale student,” “privileged youngster,” “youngster,” “path in sociology,” “graduate school,” and “day laborer.” Nomura argues that if simply responding to workers’ questions in terms of identity were sufficient, then the concept of positionality itself would have been unnecessary.
Identity cannot clearly indicate power relations like positionality. The relationships of discrimination and non-discrimination, and oppression and non-oppression are problems that exist on the side of the discriminators and oppressors, and do not belong to the victimized minorities. Therefore, in addressing this issue, it is essential to re-examine the positionality of the majority. From this perspective, the illusion of Kishi’s argument is exposed. Kishi abruptly dismisses arguments that rigorously question positionality, like Nomura’s, as “stifling and, above all, boring.” This alone is a sufficiently decisive criticism of Kishi’s academic attitude, but there is an even more fatal fallacy.
In his writings, Kishi repeatedly states “I love Okinawa” as a “keyword” of his scholarship. In response, Nomura indicates that the very act of the Japanese saying “I love Okinawa” is itself a missing awareness of positionality. By failing to acknowledge their positionality, whether consciously or unconsciously, they ignore the reality of the existence and impositions of US military bases and create the deception of claiming they are “not imposing bases” on Okinawa. The feeling of “loving Okinawa” inherent in many Japanese people is a schema of preconceived notions based on their disregard of the base burden. Kishi’s repetition of this statement is nothing more than a continued abandonment of the practice of reflecting on positionality, just as is common among the Japanese. It is an escape from an unbearable mental burden. However, for Ryukyuans, relief from economic, cultural, and mental suffering is impossible. Nomura’s restrained indignation—that if they “love Okinawa,” “they should accept the relocation at least one base to their prefectures”—is reasonable. Needless to say, being involved in the “Okinawa issue” and “loveing Okinawa” are unrelated.
What is important here is that this issue is not merely a matter of Kishi Masahiko’s personal attitude. What is being questioned is the very structure of response—” how to respond”—and to that extent, this issue inevitably opens up to an ethical question. In other words, positionality is not merely a declaration of stance, but a determining condition of how we respond. Kishi’s statement, “I love Okinawa,” functions not so much as a matter of content, but as an avoidance of response.
Nomura’s questioning of the Japanese positionality towards Ryukyu and the Ryukyuans is about acknowledging the historical responsibility, at least since the modern era, particularly the unspeakable experience of wartime mobilization, and the fact that despite the guarantee of safety and prosperity under postwar US occupation, Japan has unconsciously continued to treat Okinawa as a tourist destination. At this point, the Japanese are given one choice: to fulfill their responsibility. I believe this choice is ethical precisely because it is unilaterally given. The philosophy of positionality exists to transform one’s position as a discriminator, colonizer, and power-holder by fulfilling one’s responsibility.
Although this may sound commonplace, Nomura, through his critique of Kishi, can be said to be questioning the very nature of the Japanese people. The Burakumin, too, are included in this “general Japanese.” In other words, “we Burakumin” are also required to clarify our positionality toward the Ryukyuans and fulfill our responsibilities. While we demand that others respond in the oppressive and non-oppressive relationship, we simultaneously bear an even greater responsibility to respond to others. This is just as Kim Jeong-mi, in the past and still today, continues to question our war responsibility and ethical attitude. Here, it is necessary to reiterate the nature of the positionality and responsibility that we ourselves must question.
Responsibility is the constant response to others (“être responsable sans fin,” an endless responsibility). This responsibility is not fixed, but continues as an endless response (responsibility as an endless responsiveness). Most importantly, it is the recognition that we can never fully understand others. This means avoiding defining others in any final way and maintaining an open relationship with them. Responsibility coexists with the “undecidability” in response. A truly ethical decision lies in accepting uncertainty, yet still continuing to make decisions. That is the response to the question of positionality. For better or worse, the practice of this attitude is ethics as an aporia.
What meaning does ethics have in the question of accountability? Ethics is not about adhering to stable rules, but about placing oneself in the midst of unresolved dilemmas and contradictions. In the case of war responsibility, the act of response inevitably involves defining others, and therefore violence is involved. Furthermore, there is no single, definitive answer to the question, “Who should be held accountable, and how?” However, the very act of continuing to ask these questions is an ethical act. Therefore, the paradox that “holding others accountable” can reproduce violence must be responded to with deconstructive thinking. This is nothing less than the practice of a fragile and unfinished ethics: continuing to respond to others while being aware of the impossibility of reducing others’ definitions.
However, positionality is inevitably involved in responding to responsibility. But its expression does not necessarily immediately align with this ethics. A tension exists there. Although responsibility lies not in expressing a fixed position but in “continuing to respond,” when we say, “I speak as someone who is in this position,” we stably define that position. This defining is both inevitable and inherently violent. Therefore, while elucidating positionality is necessary, fixing it as a definitive self-definition carries the risk of stripping away the complexity of the relationship between the self and the other.
Thus, positionality is something that should be elucidated, yet at the same time, it is an aporia. It is defined, but that defining is always provisional and constantly being updated. Elucidating positionality does not absolve one of responsibility; rather, it amplifies it.
Connecting to Emmanuel Levinas here further sharpens the argument. For him, ethics begins with a one-sided call by the “face of the other.” The important point is that “I” already bear responsibility to the other before explaining my own positionality. This responsibility is asymmetrical and excessive, and one’s identity is formed retrospectively in the process of this response. From this perspective, the “clarification of positionality” is reversed. That is, it’s not a case of “I respond because I am in this position,” but rather a situation where “I have already responded, and within that response, my own position is continuously being questioned.”
Discrimination and prejudice against minorities do not arise from an issue of “identity.” It’s not a question of “who” the discriminated against is, but rather “the position occupied by the discriminator.” In other words, it’s a problem of position—that is, relationship, structure, and practice. When positionality is spoken of stably, the response can become violent in that it defines the other. On the other hand, if one does not articulate own position, the response itself becomes impossible, leading to another serious form of violence. These two are not oppositions but aporias. Furthermore, positionality itself is not the foundation of ethics. Koya Nomura clarifies that the aporias of “endless responses” and “the impossibility of decision-making” open up a direction towards redefining positionality not as the disclosure of fixed attributes, but as a constantly fluctuating form of responsibility.