I fully subscribe to efforts of decolonizing linguistics. Often, however, I find it unclear what the right or best conduct is because paradoxical situations abound in my field experience. For example, I collaborated with a community member intensively on a language description, which is reflected in both of our names featuring as publication authors. My collaborator, however, has not learned to read or write. Thus, his name is on a publication whose contents he cannot verify. Because of it being written and also because of the academic lingo and analysis. I feel that it is to a certain degree transgressive to attribute sth to him that he cannot verify or understand. Still, it would be (much) worse, I feel, to not render his essential contribution visible. And importantly, it is his wish to be named, so the decision is clear. However, this does not resolve the power hierarchy relating to our research outcomes.

I would appreciate discussion not just around abstract goals or principles, but around complex situations like the one I described above. Such complicated situations arise all the time in my experience and lack ready answers. Even if a certain conduct seems preferable, actually overcoming asymmetries can remain an almost or actually elusive goal.

This is different for information/data. If you give me data, you still have the data, which is different from me taking your gold.

If you look at the etymology of ex-tract, you find the idea of "taking away", which I cannot make any sense of in the context of, say, compiling morphological paradigms.

I find this metaphor to be misleading, and it should be replaced by something else which more appropriately describes the relation between Westerners and colonialized people (which can still be problematic)