Multicultural Literacy Fostered By Zainichi Korean Museums: Case Studies of Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka in Japan

Ochiai, Tomoko

In Japan, where the Ainu and Uchinanchu indigenous peoples have lived for centuries and people of Korean and Chinese origin have lived for more than 100 years, immigrants and ethnic minorities have been invisible to those who have the illusion of a mono-ethnic nation, and have been the objects of display in museums and expositions. In recent years, however, there have been attempts to democratically transform Japanese civil society, the host society, by having minorities themselves document their history and create community archives, forming a base for providing multicultural and human rights education.

This study aims to elucidate how multicultural education and human rights education provided by immigrant museums can bring about multicultural literacy to citizens of the host society, including immigrant parties, through the operation of participatory teaching methods of multicultural education and human rights education based at immigrant museums by Korean parties living in Japan. The purpose of this study is to elucidate how multicultural education and human rights education conducted at immigrant museums can bring about multicultural literacy (Banks, 1991) among citizens of the host society, including immigrants. The analysis will focus on the practices of three museums in the Kansai region, which were established mainly by Korean residents in Japan. These are the Kobe Museum of Korean Lives and Words, which open in 2024; the Korean Town Historical Museum in Osaka, which was established in 2023; and the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum, which opened in Kyoto in 2022. Examples of multicultural and human rights education practices conducted there will be introduced. Through life story interviews with people engaged in multicultural education and human rights education at the museums and interviews with the general public who participated in the education, we will clarify the reality of the learning that is taking place there.