(Continued from the previous posting)
Process of Jimotogaku
Going out for fieldwork
The main activity of Jimotogaku is a fieldwork to find out what we have in the community. It is a simple work. Community members together with outsiders just walk around the community and record what they found interesting. The most important thing is that you need to find out what you feel unique, interesting, or surprised. It is very important to search for “FACTS”, not just a thinking, opinion, or perception of the participants. Any kinds of concrete things including natural environment, human activities, products, skills, infrastructure, building, equipments, or even spiritual symbols can be searched for and recorded. When you found something interesting, you can ask questions about it to a community member by using concrete questions. You can record on a notebook, or draw a picture or sketch, or take photos. It is also important to record what the community members talked about it.
How to work out the results
After coming back from fieldwork, you need to compile the result (what you found). There are several ways to do it.
a) Local information card: every item will be recorded in each card describing what is found, photo or illustration, what the community people say, your comments
b) Local resource map: the participants can compile the information collected into a local resource map using pictures, drawings, and comments
c) Detail description of a household: one typical household can be described deeply in a detail picture map showing their equipments, housing styles, plants, animals, etc.
d) Agriculture calendar: if you study about agricultural activities, it can be compiled into a calendar of those activities. Fishery or forestry calendar can also be made.
e) Story of community members: especially if you had a chance to hear from old generations, it is a good chance to find out community history and local wisdom.
f) Human resource map: you may find various kinds of unique activities of community people. Those findings can be compiled into a human resource map.
Making actions
Mr. Yoshimoto mentions that there are four steps to create community development actions based on the results of Jimotogaku. “Knowing the past”, “analyzing the present”, “predicting the future change”, and “starting what we can do” are those processes. By Jimotogaku practice, local community can understand themselves from much wider and deeper perspectives, and they start thinking what can be or should be done, and finelly they will be able to take initiative to do something.
According to Mr. Yoshimoto, Jimotogaku can contribute to the following things;
- Enhance the understanding on your own community
- Acquire deep knowledge on the locally produced goods and services, explain about it to people from outside of your community, which will ultimately stimulate ideas for new products
- Enjoy local life and be willing to guide visitors
- Cope with and adapt to external changes
- Set up future vision of the community and think what people can do for it
Through those impacts, Jimotogaku will become a basis for continuous local actions for community development.
Actions after Jimotogaku
One of the examples of Jimotogaku application in Minamata is “Field Museum of Village Life” at Kagumeishi village. Kagumeishi is located at the last end of Minamata city in mountain area at the border of Kagoshima Prefecture. It is a tiny agricultural village with around 40 households. The community people started the “Field Museum” in 2002 as a result of “searching for what we have” activity of Jimotogaku. The principle of the museum is to show their own local resources that were discovered through Jimotogaku. There is no building as “Museum”, but only signboard. The “Museum guides” are ordinary villagers who show various places of the village such as rice terrace which has been inherited for hundreds of years, small stream and large rocks that became origin of the village name, traditional small shrine that has been taken care of by the community, water resources of the village, and other traditional equipments or household effects. They also serve local foods that utilize local materials and cooked in traditional ways. It is really a “simple” museum, but there have been more than 3,000 visitors from all over Japan so far now.
According to a leader of the village, Mr. Yutaka Katsume, at the beginning, the villagers wondered whether such simple things could attract the outsiders. In fact, when the new idea of “field museum of village life” is introduced to the villagers, most of them were skeptical to the idea. Only because the city official, Mr. Yoshimoto, stated that the idea of field museum would not give any bad impact to the village, they agreed to start the activity. They firstly practiced the Jimotogaku fieldwork, found out what they have, made resource maps of the area, and prepared for explaining about their communities to the visitors.
After starting the museum, they could receive many guests from outsiders, and as those outsiders show interest in the village nature, tradition, lifestyle, and foods, the villagers started to become aware of richness of village life, and restore self-confidence in their own village. Recently, the village women started food processing activity that cooks traditional local foods and packs them into lunch box delivered to the city office. In addition, stimulated by outsiders interest and their advices, there are some villagers who started innovating own traditional products such as vine baskets or trying to plant new crops that can be sold to the town people. Mr. Katsume, the village leader, expects that opportunities of exchanging with outside people through the Museum activity will lead to re-vitalizing economic activities of the village. He hopes to attract young generation to come to and live in the village where over-aging and depopulation have been a major concern for many years.
Implications to community development in other countries
Jimotogaku was born in Japanese communities. However, its concept and methodology is highly applicable to any other fields of community development outside Japan. As the practice of Jimotogaku can be regarded as an “antithesis” to conventional centralized top-down approach of community development, it can be utilized by anyone who wants to facilitate local community’s initiative to start actions based on existing local resources, not depending on outside ideas, projects, or funds. Through Jimotogaku practice, community members will re-discover their own history, culture, skills, wisdom, human relations, and other existing local resources, and as a result, they will be able to start actions to tackle their issue based on what they have. A lot of participants of JICA training who have been exposed to the concept and practice of Jimotogaku in Japan expressed that it is a very useful approach for their community development activities, and there are some ex-participants who have already started practices.
Based on those practices of Jimotogaku in developing countries, there are some key points for successful application of Jimotogaku in the field of community development.
a) Constructing equal relationship with local community
In many cases, outsiders who want to introduce Jimotogaku are development experts. The outsiders should be sensitive to construct equal relationship with the local people so that they will be able to search, discuss, and think freely.
b) Do not teach, advice, or instruct
Even if you are outsiders with high education, you must not teach, instruct, or give advice to the community. You are here to facilitate the community people themselves find out what they have.
c) Involving people from other communities
It may be a good idea to involve ordinary people from other communities so that they can stimulate each other.
d) Finding out concrete things
It is not our objective to think about abstract concept. For example, you need to find out concrete things (equipments, buildings, or skills) rather than mentioning “tradition”.
e) Continuing follow-up for next actions
Jimotogaku is not just a “treasure finding”. After fieldwork, community people will analyze, find out what can be done, and start something. If necessary, the outsiders should continually be involved in the process as facilitators.
So, let us find out what we have, and start something base on it. We are waiting for your practice of Jimotogaku in your field. And of course, let us share our experiences each other!
2009-02-26
JIMOTOGAKU - based on what we have here! (1)
“Jimotogaku” is an approach of community development born in local communities of Japan in mid-1990s. It focuses on existing local resources and facilitates community people’s initiative to utilize those resources. “Stop asking for what we do not have, let us start from finding out what we have” is a principle of Jimotogaku. It also emphasizes collaboration among “Soil and Wind” (community people and outsiders) to find out what the local communities have and how to utilize them. “Etiquette of outsiders” is attached more importance in the practice.
Jimotogaku practice was firstly started in Minamata where local communities had been destroyed by adverse impact of Minamata disease. It helped the local people to re-construct and revive community actions there, and then Jimotogaku practice was spread out to various local communities throughout Japan where local people and outsiders collaborated each other to find out existing resources and to utilize them for community development. Now, practice of Jimotogaku has crossed the border by ex-participants of JICA training courses, and we can hear from many friends engaged in community development in various countries telling that they are trying to apply approach of Jimotogaku in their fields.
This article aims at briefly introducing background and basics of Jimotogaku for those who want to practice its approach in each field. It will help you to explain Jimotogaku to your colleagues or community members, and it will give you some useful tips for practicing Jimotogaku in your field.
Origin of Jimotogaku – Minamata disease and reviving local community
Minamata disease is a disease of the central nervous system, caused by the consumption of fish or shellfish contaminated with methyl mercury compounds which were formed as by-products in the acetaldehyde synthesizing process of Chisso Minamata Factory and then discharged as waste into the Minamata bay, Kumamoto Prefecture of Kyushu Island, Japan. The first recognized outbreaks occurred around Minamata Bay in 1956. More than twelve thousand people living around Minamata have been officially recognized as patients affected by mercury. “Minamata disease not only caused serious health damage, but it has also had a massive and broad-reaching effect on local community, in terms of environmental devastation and the breakdown of community ties”, the Minamata City Mayor, Masazumi Yoshii mentioned in December 2000 . Chisso factory, that contaminated the bay and caused the disease, have been the main industry in the city for around 100 years employing many residents and contributing economic development in the area. At the time of the outbreak of Minamata disease, after it was made clear that the cause was the mercury in the wastewater of Chisso factory on which Minamata was economically dependent, the residents were divided against each other, and communication between people on different sides of the issues was severed for a long time.
However, in 1990s, some citizens and local government officials who realized that antagonism produces nothing, started to re-generate the local community. The activity was called “Moyai-Naoshi”. “Moyai” literally means to tie something together, and “Naoshi” means doing something again. They formed “Yoro-kai” at each local community (there are 26 communities in the city), where the residents explored their own locality searching for “what we have”, that is, finding out own local resources, their values and meanings for own lives, and plotting those resources into picture maps. Through the activities, the community people could rediscover the values of traditional life styles, rich natural resources, own culture, and various works that have been supporting their life for many years. They found that the community life of Minamata is strongly related with rich natural environment - mountains, rivers, and the sea .
Through “Yoro-kai” groups, the community people in Minamata reviewed and rediscovered their own local resources, and reconsidered the relation among their life, culture, and environment. As a result of those activities, the citizens started various projects that aimed at constructing environmental friendly sustainable society, such as “21 type-wise garbage collection”, “formation of Women’s Liaison Conference on Waste Reduction”, and “introduction of environmental ISO for schools”, “Eco-shop Recognition system”. Besides, each community began reviving traditional foods, festivals, games, and tools that were reconsidered through “searching for what we have”, and the community ties that had once destroyed were restored. And the process of the Yoro-kai activities - rediscovering local resources, formulating vision, and facilitating local initiatives for actions, was named “Jimotogaku” (literally means learning from the local) by the leader of the activities, Mr. Tetsuro Yoshimoto, an official of the city Minamata.
Principle of Jimotogaku
Mr. Yoshimoto emphasizes importance of studying own local community by the community members themselves. “Only those who studied / researched can become wiser” is the motto of Jimotogaku. Thus, the community people themselves should be the main actors of Jimotogaku practice. Jimotogaku is a practice to find out own local resources by the community members with help of outsiders, and it starts with field work to look for what we have in the community.
According to Mr. Yoshimoto, there are seven fundamental attitudes that anyone should keep when he/she is involved in the fieldwork of Jimotogaku;
1) Study in the field: you need to walk there, watch, listen to, and study the facts there.
2) Study with outsiders: Outsiders’ perspective can help the community members find out uniqueness of the area. However, outsiders should not teach, but they have to draw out potentials of the community by asking questions.
3) Listen without preconception: you should ask to the local people and record what he/she talks. Do not guess and write something based on your own perception.
4) Being on equal position: you should not teach and advise. Even if you talk to a small child, you should be on equal position to him.
5) Ask concrete things (FACTS): you should not ask opinions or perceptions. You need to ask about what he/she does/uses in his/her daily life.
6) Select appropriate place: it is important to meet community people at a place where they feel informal and easy to talk each others.
7) Ordinary man/woman has own specialty: you do not have to select any special person who is considered to be “specialist” of the community. Each and every ordinary community member has various experience you can find out many interesting skills, knowledge, and stories from those persons.
After the fieldwork to search for what we have in the community, it is necessary to analyze what are found. Mr. Yoshimoto introduces three ways of analysis;
a) Relating or linking what are found with each other
b) Overlapping different issues
c) Looking into the things below surface
The topics or themes of the Jimotogaku field study can be the following items;
Water passage / useful plants / play in the sea, river, and forest / calendar of food or plants / history of the community / map of artisans / housing style and climate patterns / rout map of local products / how garbage is treated / movement of wild animals / old streets and new roads / traditional beliefs and natural environment, etc.
(To be continued to the next posting)
Jimotogaku practice was firstly started in Minamata where local communities had been destroyed by adverse impact of Minamata disease. It helped the local people to re-construct and revive community actions there, and then Jimotogaku practice was spread out to various local communities throughout Japan where local people and outsiders collaborated each other to find out existing resources and to utilize them for community development. Now, practice of Jimotogaku has crossed the border by ex-participants of JICA training courses, and we can hear from many friends engaged in community development in various countries telling that they are trying to apply approach of Jimotogaku in their fields.
This article aims at briefly introducing background and basics of Jimotogaku for those who want to practice its approach in each field. It will help you to explain Jimotogaku to your colleagues or community members, and it will give you some useful tips for practicing Jimotogaku in your field.
Origin of Jimotogaku – Minamata disease and reviving local community
Minamata disease is a disease of the central nervous system, caused by the consumption of fish or shellfish contaminated with methyl mercury compounds which were formed as by-products in the acetaldehyde synthesizing process of Chisso Minamata Factory and then discharged as waste into the Minamata bay, Kumamoto Prefecture of Kyushu Island, Japan. The first recognized outbreaks occurred around Minamata Bay in 1956. More than twelve thousand people living around Minamata have been officially recognized as patients affected by mercury. “Minamata disease not only caused serious health damage, but it has also had a massive and broad-reaching effect on local community, in terms of environmental devastation and the breakdown of community ties”, the Minamata City Mayor, Masazumi Yoshii mentioned in December 2000 . Chisso factory, that contaminated the bay and caused the disease, have been the main industry in the city for around 100 years employing many residents and contributing economic development in the area. At the time of the outbreak of Minamata disease, after it was made clear that the cause was the mercury in the wastewater of Chisso factory on which Minamata was economically dependent, the residents were divided against each other, and communication between people on different sides of the issues was severed for a long time.
However, in 1990s, some citizens and local government officials who realized that antagonism produces nothing, started to re-generate the local community. The activity was called “Moyai-Naoshi”. “Moyai” literally means to tie something together, and “Naoshi” means doing something again. They formed “Yoro-kai” at each local community (there are 26 communities in the city), where the residents explored their own locality searching for “what we have”, that is, finding out own local resources, their values and meanings for own lives, and plotting those resources into picture maps. Through the activities, the community people could rediscover the values of traditional life styles, rich natural resources, own culture, and various works that have been supporting their life for many years. They found that the community life of Minamata is strongly related with rich natural environment - mountains, rivers, and the sea .
Through “Yoro-kai” groups, the community people in Minamata reviewed and rediscovered their own local resources, and reconsidered the relation among their life, culture, and environment. As a result of those activities, the citizens started various projects that aimed at constructing environmental friendly sustainable society, such as “21 type-wise garbage collection”, “formation of Women’s Liaison Conference on Waste Reduction”, and “introduction of environmental ISO for schools”, “Eco-shop Recognition system”. Besides, each community began reviving traditional foods, festivals, games, and tools that were reconsidered through “searching for what we have”, and the community ties that had once destroyed were restored. And the process of the Yoro-kai activities - rediscovering local resources, formulating vision, and facilitating local initiatives for actions, was named “Jimotogaku” (literally means learning from the local) by the leader of the activities, Mr. Tetsuro Yoshimoto, an official of the city Minamata.
Principle of Jimotogaku
Mr. Yoshimoto emphasizes importance of studying own local community by the community members themselves. “Only those who studied / researched can become wiser” is the motto of Jimotogaku. Thus, the community people themselves should be the main actors of Jimotogaku practice. Jimotogaku is a practice to find out own local resources by the community members with help of outsiders, and it starts with field work to look for what we have in the community.
According to Mr. Yoshimoto, there are seven fundamental attitudes that anyone should keep when he/she is involved in the fieldwork of Jimotogaku;
1) Study in the field: you need to walk there, watch, listen to, and study the facts there.
2) Study with outsiders: Outsiders’ perspective can help the community members find out uniqueness of the area. However, outsiders should not teach, but they have to draw out potentials of the community by asking questions.
3) Listen without preconception: you should ask to the local people and record what he/she talks. Do not guess and write something based on your own perception.
4) Being on equal position: you should not teach and advise. Even if you talk to a small child, you should be on equal position to him.
5) Ask concrete things (FACTS): you should not ask opinions or perceptions. You need to ask about what he/she does/uses in his/her daily life.
6) Select appropriate place: it is important to meet community people at a place where they feel informal and easy to talk each others.
7) Ordinary man/woman has own specialty: you do not have to select any special person who is considered to be “specialist” of the community. Each and every ordinary community member has various experience you can find out many interesting skills, knowledge, and stories from those persons.
After the fieldwork to search for what we have in the community, it is necessary to analyze what are found. Mr. Yoshimoto introduces three ways of analysis;
a) Relating or linking what are found with each other
b) Overlapping different issues
c) Looking into the things below surface
The topics or themes of the Jimotogaku field study can be the following items;
Water passage / useful plants / play in the sea, river, and forest / calendar of food or plants / history of the community / map of artisans / housing style and climate patterns / rout map of local products / how garbage is treated / movement of wild animals / old streets and new roads / traditional beliefs and natural environment, etc.
(To be continued to the next posting)
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