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A Research Project by Graduate Students
Fund: Global COE Program Ars Vivendi of Ritsumeikan University
Period: June 2009 to March 2010 & May 2010 to March 2011

■Activities/Achievements

Events

◆Public Seminar "Projects for a Multi-ethnic State and Minorities: Exploring the Possibility of Building a Society of Coexistence with Current Conditions and Problems of Foreigners in Japan"
Date: Friday, February 26, 2010 14:00-17:00
Place: Soshikan 303 & 304, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University

◆Roundtable Discussion "Questions of Ethics and Practice in Doing Research: Who is a "researcher" that vacillates between those studied, the involved persons, ordinary citizens, and activists"
Discussants: NAGATA Atsumasa (Anthropology) / ARIZONO Masayo (Sociology) / KITAMURA Kentaro (Sociology) / HORIE Yuri (Sociology) / Chairmanship: YAMAMOTO Takanori
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University

Regular Meetings

◆11th meeting
Date: Saturday, May 28, 2010
Time: 16:00-19:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Discussion on the drafts for Center Report
(1) MURAKAMI Kiyoshi
(2) HORIE Yuri

◆10th meeting
Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 14:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
2nd Discussion on the drafts for the Center Report
(1) YANG Yangil "School Culture and Empowerment: From Narratives of Non-School Goers, Members of Dysfunctionning Families, and the Developmentally Disabled"
(2) TAKAHASHI Shinichi "Does Sex Really Matter when Working? : Problems about Employment and Life of Those Uncomfortable with Their Sex"

◆9th meeting
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010
Time: 13:00-16:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
1st Discussion on the drafts for the Center Report
(1) YAMAMOTO Takanori "Question of Ethics and Practice in Doing Research"
(2) NOSE Keisuke "Transformation of Brazilian Communities after Lehman Shock"

◆8th meeting
Date: Friday, February 5 to Saturday February 6, 2010.
Place: Christianity Hall for Japanese Korean (KCC Hall)
Meeting for the roundtable discussion in February, brainstorming of the coming public event and a possible symposium of the next school year, and edition of the Center Report

◆7th meeting
Date: Friday, January 8, 2010 Time: 13:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Meeting about the joint fieldwork, the symposium, and edition of the Center Report

◆6th meeting
Date: Friday, December 11, 2009
Time: 13:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
MURAKAMI Kiyoshi "Problems and Prospects on Making an Issue of "'Women's Poverty'"
Meeting about editing the coming Ars Vivendi Center Report

◆5th meeting
Date: Friday, November 6, 2009
Time: 13:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
(1) KWAK Jeong-Ran (Support Center for Disability Students, Daegu University) "Movement Support Service by Hessar University and Demands from Students with Disabilities There"
(2) NOSE Keisuke "Social Exclusion against Migrant Youth: Their Difficulties in Access to Regular Employment"
(Summary) There has been a considerable amount of academic literature about migrant children in Japan and their lives: such as school culture, academic performance, career path, education assistance, non subscription to school, and institutions. These studies have helped to see the difficult situation of these minors: for example, their significantly lower advancement rate to high school, which undoubtedly suggests that migrant children have often faced hardship in continuing education.
Starting from these facts, the presentation is aimed at investigating two things through their life histories: (1) how and with what difficulties the migrant youth, after leaving school or with insufficient school education, work, and (2) why they have to work in such conditions. This study, which tries to connect educational situation and job situation of the migrant youth, will contribute to questioning the consequence of Japan's migrant intake practice lacking proper policy, and other issues of social exclusion such as part-time workers, income gap, and poverty.

◆4th meeting
Date: Friday, October 2, 2009
Time: 13:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
(1) KITAMURA Kentaro "An Overview of Child-raising Assistance (Kosodate Shien)" (Tentative)

(2) HASHIGUCHI Shoji "What have Precarious Trade Union Movements Inherited from their Precursors?: From the Case of "Union Bochi Bochi"
[Summary] Union Bochi Bochi, a precarious workers union in Kansai area, was formed in November, 2005 while the job situation of the young was recognized as a social issue. The union sees as a model Kyoto Union, an individual-based community union that has long been active in Kansai area. We can find the same tendency in other youth precarious workers unions formed around mid 2000s. This presentation will, doing a case study of Union Bochi Bochi, discuss these emerging unions' "inheritance" from their precursors and its meaning in history of labor movement.

◆3nd meeting
Date: Friday, August 28, 2009
Time: 13:00-17:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
(1) SHIRASUGI Makoto "Organizing Theory of Center for Independent Living (CIL): Ways of Maintaining the Balance between Movements and Business"
[Summary] It is problematic that CIL now tends to give top priority to the profits from various services such as home nursing care, and that their able-bodied staffs take initiative of its management. This presentation will explore what kind of management style will be desirable for revitalizing the now-diminishing role of the center as a locus of disability movement.

(2) TAKAHASHI Shinichi "How does Disability Movement Campaign on 'Town Development' (Machidukuri) Projects: The Case of "National Citizen Meeting of Wheelchair Users"
[Summary] Social movements by the people with (physical) disabilities can participate in "town development" projects from various viewpoints. Movement, transportation, housing, care, income guarantee, consumer life - each topic can be discussed separately and some have questioned these divisions themselves. This presentation is aimed at getting an overview of the claims of disability movement on town development projects, by tracing the network of disability movement activists who has been involved in these projects. For doing this, I mainly study the published report of National Citizen Meeting of Wheelchair Users.
In the meeting, the topics are not only about infrastructure projects the word of "town development" was often associated with, but about the differences among the people with disabilities themselves and discriminations they have faced. Wheelchair users are interested in deeper communication between people with "not severe" disabilities and people with severe disablilities (plus people with language disabilities, who take longer in communicating with others.) Obviously, people with disablilities themselves have also tried to communicate and live with people with severe disabilities with some difficulty.

◆2nd meeting
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009
Time: 12:00-15:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
(1) YOSHIDA Sachie "The People with Mental Disabilities Living in their own Local Community: Strategy of Survival Seen from their Life Histories"
(2) HEE KYONG Chong "Research Trend on History of Disability Movements in South Korea"

◆1st meeting
Date: Friday, July 3, 2009
Time: 13:00-16:00
Place: Room 201, Gakuji Kan, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University
Speaker:
YANG Yangil "School Culture and Empowerment"
YANO Ryo "Antidiscrimination Measures (Dowa Taisaku) and Livelihood Protection: Antidiscrimination Measures as an Exit from Livelihood Protection, and again into Livelihood Protection" (Summary Presented)

Achievements

Academic Papers

◆ YOSHIDA Sachie March 31, 2010 "A Study on Narrative and the Life of People with Mental Disorders: What Does the Word 'Support' Mean?," Core Ethics 6:485-496, Graduate School of Core Ethics & Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University

◆ YANG Yangil March 31, 2010 "Zainichi Koreans' Identity and Diversity Education," Core Ethics 6:473-483, Graduate School of Core Ethics & Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University

◆ YANG Yangil March 20, 2010 "Introduction of Literature: What is zainichi (residing in Japan)? Considering Meaning and Hope of Living among Boundaries at Home and Abroad," Ars Vivendi 2:306-313

◆ YAMAMOTO Takanori, March 20, 2009 "Terms of Affirmative Action Policy the Government's Dowa Policy Proposes: Preliminary Examination concerning Social Policy within Range of Discrimination and Poverty," Ars Vivendi 2:96-109

◆ YOSHIDA Sachie, December 2009 "People with 'Aging' to Live in the Society: Issues Found in the Life History of a Person with Mental Disabilities," Collection of Academic Papers 27:115-129, The Korean Scholarship Foundation

◆ MURAKAMI Kiyoshi August 31, 2009 "Raising the Question of "the Situation as Housewives" by Women Concerned in the 1970s: From a Record of a Seminar at Tokyo Kunitachi City Public Hall," Ritsumeikan Journal of Human Sciences 19:43-57.

Conference Presentations

◆ MURAKAMI Kiyoshi, December 13, 2009 "Problems and Prospects on Making Issues of "Women's Poverty," The 12th National Convention of the Association for the Socio-culture, Osaka University

◆ YOSHIDA Sachie, October 4, 2009 "People with 'Aging' to Live in the Society: From the Life History of a Person with Mental Disabilities," The Korean Scholarship Foundation, Osaka

◆ YOSHIDA Sachie, September 27, 2009, "Strategies for People with 'Aging' to Live in the Society: Life History of People with Disabilities," The Sixth Annual Convention of Japan Society of Disability Studies, Ritsumeikan University

◆ SHIRASUGI Makoto September 27, 2009, "The Way of Support of Center for Independent Living in Support of Independence of Severely Disabled People: Focusing on Activities for Protection of Rights in Center for Independent Living," The Sixth Annual Convention of Japan Society of Disability Studies, Ritsumeikan University

◆ HEE KYONG Chong September 27, 2009, "Movements for Change and Movements by People with Disabilities: Over South Korea's Act on Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities in 1989 and Militant Movements for Welfare Law for People with Disabilities," The Sixth Annual Convention of Japan Society of Disability Studies, Ritsumeikan University

◆ KITAMURA Kentaro September 27, 2009, "Formation of "National Network of Hemophilia Association"," The Sixth Annual Convention of Japan Society of Disability Studies, Ritsumeikan University.

Social Activities

◆ TAKAHASHI Shinichi March 22, 2010 Discussant for Workshop "Young People, Unite! (Wakamono Unaito)," Osaka Social Forum

◆ YANG Yangil February 18, 2010, "Richness of Difference: Toward Creation of A Multi-ethnic and -culture Coexistence Society," Lecture a Seminar for Cooperate Executives, Osaka Labor Department of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare

◆ MURAKAMI Kiyoshi February 16, 2010 Interviewed for a Radio Program on the Situation of Precarious Workers, FM Wai Wai

◆ MURAKAMI Kiyoshi February 2, 2010 "Am I a Housewife or a Worker?," Lecture at Neyagawa Municipal Center for Gender Equality

◆ KITAMURA Kentaro December 6, 2009 "Listening to our own Body: Communication in Medically Uncertainty," The 14th Meeting for Case Study, Multilingual Community Interpreter Network, Osaka Office of Ritsumeikan University

◆ YANG Yangil October 2009 (until now) Committee Member for the Research and Public Awareness Project for the Unemployed Youth with Developmental Disabilities in Osaka City

◆ YANG Yangil September 15, 2009 "Richness of Difference: Toward Creation of A Multi-ethnic and -culture Coexistence Society," Journal of Human Rights Education in Hyogo, 151 (2009-09): 1-3, Hyogo Association for Human Rights Education

◆ MURAKAMI Kiyoshi September 10, 2009 "What it Is like Being a Housewife," Lecture at Kakogawa Citizen's College for Lifelong Learning, Kakogawa, Hyogo

◆ YANG Yangil July 2009 (to March 2010) Supervisor at the Cooperating Project with Local Resource for Promotion of Empowerment and Employment Assistance for the Youth - Focusing on those with Developmentally Disabilities, Osaka Municipal Government

◆ YANG Yangil July 2009 (to March 2010) Supervisor at the Osaka Municipal Center for the People with Developmental Disablities

Resources

◆ YANG Yangil and YANO Ryo April 17, 2010, "Chronology of Events on Minority Issues: 1945-1959"

◆ YANG Yangil and YANO Ryo March 12, 2010, "Documents and Resources on Minority Issues (Mostly in Kansai Area)"

◆ TAKAHASHI Shinichi August 11, 2009, "Disability Movements and Town Development, Part 1: Interview with YABUKI Fumitoshi (Japan Center for Independent Living)"

◆ YAMAMOTO Takanori July 15, 2009, "Past, Present and Future of Buraku Liberation Movement, Part 4: Interview with YAMAUCHI Masao (Yanagihara Bank Memorial Resource Center)"

Research

◆ Joint Field Trip to Ikuno, Osaka, February 5 & 6, 2010
Places Visited: International Market, History Resource Center about Korean in Japan, Korean Town (Ikaino Area, Ikuno), Korean Christian Center (KCC), Imazato Shinchi, Aishin Nursery School, Setton: A Telephone Counseling Hotline, Anglican Church in Japan (NSKK) Ikuno Center, a center for people with mental disablities

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Research Project Proposal

Theme: Research on Local Government Measures and Dynamic Process of Movement by the Parties Involved in A Complex Society of Minorities

Members (position as of the school year 2008):
◆YANG Yangil (Graduate Student, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University) *project organizer
◆YANO Ryo (Graduate Student, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University; Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
◆NOSE Keisuke (Graduate Student, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University)
◆HEE KYONG Chong (Graduate Student, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University)
◆TAKAHASHI Shinichi (Graduate Student, Graduate School of Literature, Ritsumeikan University)
◆KITAMURA Kentaro (Part-time Lecturer at Graduate Student, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University; Post Doctoral Fellow at Ritsumeikan University)
◆MURAKAMI Kiyoshi (Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
◆YAMAMOTO Takanori (Post Doctoral Fellow at Ritsumeikan University)

◆Project Advisor: AMADA Josuke (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University)

I. Topics and Contribution to the Global COE Program Ars Vivendi

(1) Topics, Objectives and Impacts
In local community various minority groups live together in a complex social setting. Taking the fact as a starting point, the research project is aimed to describe the dynamics by which the parties involved shape their own subjects of social practice, partly determined by their own particular historical backgrounds and administrative measures of local governments. We will first compose a monograph by participatory observation in the target area and life history hearings, and then, using the collected data, establish a theoretical and methodological perspective for the study of discrimination and minority. This perspective should be rooted in the field experiences. Related academic works have a tendency either to be preoccupied with a certain discrimination issue or to be heavily dependent on the abstract theory. The project is of great importance because it will overcome the trend by approaching the dynamics of minority in local community empirically and theoretically.

(2) Contribution to the Global COE Program Ars Vivendi
While the Ars Vivendi Program sets it focus on "disability," "aging," "disease" and "difference," these four domains have rather been discussed separately and there have been limited empirical or theoretical research outcomes that include all the fields. The project will provide the Program with new findings through the observation and description of the reality that various minority people (foreigners, burakumin people, the disabled, mental health users, LGBTI, etc.) live an intricately interrelated live in local community. The project will also make a methodological contribute to the Program by exploring the meaning for the parties involved to do research that is related to their own positionality the question of which is yet discussed neither academically nor practically in the Program.

II. Research Plan, Method and Publication of Research Products

The members have organized a study group since April 2009, and the meeting will be held on a monthly basis so that they will discuss their own ongoing research topics and joint research projects. Information about research activities and achievements of the project will be shared with other projects and other researchers through mailing lists and Ars Vivendi website. Each member will respectively organize three days field trip (participatory observation) in Japan between July and October 2009. The members will collect related materials and construct a database out of them. After common awareness of the issues are shared between members and certain amount of information gathered, study groups and symposiums that invite researchers, activists, and the parties involved will be organized every two months (in September and November 2009, and January and March 2010.) The members will publish papers based on the result of the project on academic journals, Ars Vivendi Journal and Core Ethics. The final product will be published as a series of Research Report.

Contact: YANG Yangil

Translated by HAKODA Tetsu