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Local and global efforts for human rights education: a case from the Osaka Human Rights Museum

2010; Routledge; Volume: 14; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13642980903202729

1744-053X

Eika Tai,

Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy

Abstract Created by those involved in the liberation movement of Buraku people (members of a formerly outcaste group), the Osaka Human Rights Museum has been the most established human rights museum in Japan. I examine education at the museum as a product of the interaction between global and local efforts to promote human rights education, looking into how the curators have adopted and appropriated the universal concept of human rights according to changing strategies of human rights activism and education locally acted out in the context of Osaka, Japan. In doing so, I demonstrate how the concept of human rights is understood and implemented differently in different socio-cultural contexts. Keywords: human rightsmulticultural educationmuseumthe selfJapan Acknowledgements I received valuable comments from Janet Tallman for an early version of the article. The 2008 research trip to Japan was funded by a CHASS Scholarly Project Award from North Carolina State University and a NEAC grant from the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies. Notes Osaka Human Rights Museum, Osaka jinken hakubutsukan nenpō 16 and 17 (Osaka: Osaka Human Rights Museum, 2007 and 2008). In Osaka, many companies provide ethics training on social discrimination, often sending their employees to Liberty Osaka. Stephen May, ‘Critical Multiculturalism and Cultural Difference: Avoiding Essentialism’, in Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Education, ed. Stephen May (London: Falmer Press, 1999), 11–41. Will Kymlicka, ‘Liberal Multiculturalism: Western Models, Global Trends, and Asian Debates’, in Multiculturalism in Asia, ed. Will Kymlicka and Baogang He (London: Oxford, 2005), 22–55, 23. There have been studies that look into cross-national and cross-cultural differences in approaching the concept of human rights. See Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, eds., The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Also see Hideko Toma and Dilys Hill, ‘Rethinking Rights in the Twenty-First Century: The Right to Life and the Right to Peace from a Buddhist Perspective’, The International Journal of Human Rights 11, no. 4 (2007): 381–401. Teruhisa Se and Rie Karatsu, ‘A Conception of Human Rights based on Japanese Culture: Promoting Cross-cultural Debates’, Journal of Human Rights 3, no. 3 (2004): 269–89. John H. Davis, Jr., ‘Blurring the Boundaries of the Buraku(min)’, in Globalization and Social Change in Contemporary Japan, ed. J.S. Eadses, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu (Melbourne: Transpacific Press, 2000), 110–22, 115. There are different ways to define Buraku people. They have been defined according to the occupation and the place of present or past residence. Some argue that Buraku people do not make up a distinctive group. There are also different political positions among Buraku activists. Based on the leaflet entitled ‘To Better Understand the Dowa Issue’, published in 1994 by Osaka City Human Rights Awareness Promotion Association and Osaka Municipal Government. The statistic is not available for the number of Buraku people. Osaka Human Rights Museum, Osaka jinken hakubutsukan 20-nen no ayumi to sōgō tenji no gaiyō [The 20-year trajectory of the Osaka Human Rights Museum and the outline of the general exhibition] (Osaka: Osaka Human Rights Museum, 2005). It was decided before the opening of the museum that the museum design be changed every ten years to adjust it to the changing social context surrounding human rights. Author's interview with Kenzō Tomonaga, chief director of the Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute (BLHRRI) in July 2008. Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute (BLHRRI), Photo Document of the Post-war 60 Years: Development of the Buraku Liberation Movement (Osaka: BLHRRI, 2004), 61. The BLHRRI, ‘Buraku mondai nyûmon’ [Introduction to the Buraku issue], http://blhrri.org/nyumon/yougo/nyumon_yougo_05.htm (accessed May 31, 2009). For example, the Asaka branch of the BLL in Osaka sent members to China, Russia, India, and Bangladesh in the 1970s to seek the possibility of creating an international collaboration. Personal communication with YoshihikoYamamoto, a member of this branch, in June 2007. Author's interview with Tomonaga in July 2008. BLHRRI, Photo Document, 53. ‘IMADR has grown to be a global network of concerned individuals and minority groups with regional committees and partners in Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America. IMADR's International Secretariat is based in Japan and maintains a UN liaison office in Geneva’. BLHRRI, Photo Document, 61. Buraku liberation education seems similar to Paulo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed in that both revolve around the concept of humanity, a mutual educational relationship between the teacher and the students, and the importance of reflection and action. See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971). This law was created in 1969, and was expired in 2002 after a few extensions with the change of names. Akio Nagao, ‘Kaihō kyōiku no sōten to gendaiteki isō’ [Issues in liberation education and its current status], in Kaihō kyōiku no aidentiti [Identity of liberation education], ed. Kaihō kyōiku kenkyûjo (Tokyo: Meiji Tosho, 1997), 9–23, 13–14. Kyoko Inoue, Individual Dignity in Modern Japanese Thought: The Evolution of the Concept of Jinkaku in Moral and Educational Discourse (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2001), 204. Zenkoku Kaihō Kyōiku Kenkyûkai, ‘Ningen’ jissen no tenkai I [A development of educational practices on ‘Ningen’ I] (Tokyo: Meiji Tosho, 1981), 9–10. Nagao, ‘Kaihō kyōiku’, 14–15. Tomoko Nakajima, ‘Tabunka kyōiku kara mita jinken kyōiku’ [Human rights education in relation to multicultural education], in Korekara no jinken kyōiku [Human rights education in the future], ed. Buraku kaihō kenkyûjo (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppan, 1997), 58–72, 62. Christine E. Sleeter and Carl A. Grant, Making Choices for Multicultural Education: Five Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender (Columbus, OH: Merrill, Prentice Hall, 1999). Author's interview with Tomonaga of the BLHRRI in July 2008. In 1996, a policy proposal entitled ‘Proposals of the Consultative Council on Regional Improvement Measures’ was created to receive continuous governmental support for the Buraku issue and was subsequently endorsed by the Cabinet. Policymakers coordinated the contents of the Proposals and the National Plan of Action to make the two measures mutually supportive. The Proposals acknowledged the inclusion of multiple groups and articulated that ‘in addressing the Buraku problem, it is important to connect it to other human rights problems’. Osamu Umeda, ‘“Dōwa kyōiku” kara “jinken kyōiku” eno tenkan’ [Transformation from ‘dōwa education’ to ‘human rights education’], in Ima jinken o tou [Inquiring into human rights now], ed. Hideji Yagi (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 1999), 47–70, 55. BLHRRI, Photo Document, 73. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Plan of Action for the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education’, http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.51.506.Add.1.En?OpenDocument (accessed May 31, 2009). Umeda, ‘Dōwa kyōiku’, 55. Nagao, ‘Kaihō kyōiku’, 51. Umeda, ‘Dōwa kyōiku’, 54–7. Author's interview with Tomonaga in July 2008. Nakajima, ‘Tabunka kyōiku’, 59. Author's interview with Tomonaga in July 2008. Kaori Okano, ‘The Global-local Interface in Multicultural Education Policies in Japan’, Comparative Education 42, no. 4 (2006): 473–91. Author's interview with Asaji in July 2008. Takeshi Asaji, ‘Sabetsu jinken to kin-gendai tenji no shatei’ [A range of issues on discrimination, human rights, and modern exhibitions], Rekishi Hyōron 567 (1997): 2–12, 5. Author's interview with Asaji in July 2008. Osaka Human Rights Museum, Osaka jinken hakubutsukan tenji sōgō zuroku: Jinken kara mita Nihon shakai [The exhibition catalogue of the Osaka Human Rights Museum: Japanese society from the perspective of human rights] (Osaka: Osaka Human Rights Museum, 1996), 19. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 60–1. Ibid., 51. Ibid., 64–5. Nakajima, ‘Tabunka kyōiku’, 59. Ibid., 63. Inoue, Individual Dignity, 203. Ibid., 169. Ibid., 168. Ryoko Tsuneyoshi, The Japanese Model of Schooling (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001). Nakajima, ‘Tabunka kyōiku’, 59–65. James A. Banks, An Introduction to Multicultural Education (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2002). Christina Allemann-Ghionda, ‘Sociocultural and Linguistic Diversity, Educational Theory, and the Consequences for Teacher Education: A Comparative Perspective’, in Global Constructions of Multicultural Education: Theories and Realities, ed. Carl A Grant and Joy L. Lei (London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001), 1–26, 4. Shirley Hune, ‘Expanding the International Dimension of Asian American Studies’, Amerasia Journal 15, no. 2 (1989): xix–xxiv. See Brett Klopp, German Multiculturalism: Immigrant Integration and the Transformation of Citizenship (London: Praeger, 2002). The question of whether Okinawans make up an ethnic group has been controversial. Many liberal activists argue that they do. Liberty Osaka does not use the term ‘minzoku’ (ethnic group), but included Okinawa displays in the section of ethnicity. BLHRRI, Photo Document, 81–6. The distinction is made in the context of Buraku and other political activism in Osaka. In Tokyo, it is less clear and the term ‘human rights’ points to both discrimination and rights. Author's interview with Takeshi Asaji in July 2008. The description of the 2005 exhibition design is based on my visits to Liberty Osaka in June 2006 and July 2008 as well as based on the museum catalogue. Osaka Human Rights Museum, Osaka jinken hakubutsukan sogo tenji zuroku: Watashi ga mukiau Nihon shakai no sabetsu to jinken [The exhibition catalogue of the Osaka Human Rights Museum: discrimination and human rights in Japanese society and myself] (Osaka: Osaka Human Rights Museum, 2006). To implement this new approach effectively, the curators decided to hold experimental exhibitions on some of those themes before the time of redesigning the exhibition. Author's interviews with two Liberty Osaka curators in June 2006. Tomohiro Yoshimura, ‘“Watashi” o toitsuzukeru tenjizukuri’ [Making an exhibition inquiring into ‘I’], Buraku Kaihō 558 (2005): 12–19. Se and Karatsu, ‘A Conception of Human Rights’, 278. Author's interview with Asaji in July 2008. Yoshimura, ‘“Watashi” o toitsuzukeru’, 13–14. Keiko Nakama, ‘Sabetsu mondai to hakubutsukan tenji’ [The problem of discrimination and museum exhibitions], Osaka Jinken Hakubutsukan Kiyō 7 (2003): 110–21, 115. Tomoko Nakajima, ‘“Bunka” “jinken” ni okeru “kokoro shugi” to “kotoba shugi”’ [A ‘heart-principle’ and a ‘language-principle’ in thinking about ‘culture’ and ‘human rights’], Human Rights Education Review 1, no. 1 (1997): 25–30. Nakama, ‘Sabetsu mondai’, 120. Osaka Human Rights Museum, Osaka jinken hakubutsukan, 60–3 and 72–5. For example, see Yoshiko Nozaki, ‘Essentializing Dilemma and Multiculturalist Pedagogy: An Ethnographic Study of Japanese Children in a U.S. School’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2000): 355–80. Michelle Anne Lee, ‘Multiculturalism as Nationalism: A Discussion of Nationalism in Pluralistic Nations’, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism XXX (2003): 103–23, 103. May, ‘Critical Multiculturalism’, 31. This is reflected in the fact that multicultural education policies in Japan mostly include the term ‘foreigners’ in their titles. See Okano, ‘The Global-local Interface’, 473. Engin E. Isin and Patricia K. Wood, Citizenship and Identity (London: Sage, 1999), 69. Gershon Shafir and Alison Brysk, ‘The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights’, Citizenship Studies 10, no. 3 (2006): 275–87, 285. Ibid., 276. Yasuaki Onuma, ‘Toward an Intercivilizational Approach to Human Rights’, in The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 103–23, 112. Se and Karatsu, ‘A Conception of Human Rights’, 276 and 283. Nakajima, ‘Tabunka kyōiku’, 63.