Addressing the challenges of remote collaboration for language documentation in Nigeria

Presented at the Language Documentation and Archiving Conference, Berlin & Online, 4-6 Sept, 2024 by Chika Kennedy Ajede, Olga Olina, Miracle Oppong Peprah, Nlabephee Kefas Othaniel, Lora Litvinova, Jakob Lesage Nigeria is home to over 500 languages, nearly half of which are undocumented and lack even a basic description (Hammarström 2018: 6-7). For Nigerian and non-Nigerian researchers alike, a larger emphasis on remote collaboration could offer a possibility to document and describe languages more efficiently and sustainably. This includes a focus on capacity building with part of the funds otherwise reserved for field travel and allows yearround documentation activities. Remote collaboration faces many challenges, however (e.g. Bolaños et al. 2021), and in Nigeria, specific circumstances add to these challenges. Building trust relationships among project members requires creating an atmosphere of transparency, to avoid potential doubts and suspicions. Compensation is also a sensitive issue as many Nigerians struggle to earn a subsistence minimum. This implies that projects cannot expect consultants to be properly engaged in independent documentation activities without offering a stable income, even in communities where speakers feel reluctant to accept monetary compensation. Electricity and internet coverage in Nigeria are notoriously unreliable. This affects the availability of consultants and requires projects to invest in minimal local infrastructure for transcription and electricity-dependent technology. Using examples from our projects in north-eastern Nigeria, we propose concrete solutions to these obstacles. We offer these in the form of a model work plan which includes: • Strategies for recruiting consultants and setting up well-informed compensation agreements for independent work. • Workshops within and across communities on data collection and processing. • Social media based team management that encourages cooperation, team ownership, and shared ambition. Our diverse positionalities, from within and outside Nigeria, as community members and as outside linguists, offer an optimistic yet realistic outlook of what we think fieldwork bestpractices can look like in a country where remote collaboration may be perceived as a challenging proposition.