[Feature: Toward a Campus of Mutual Support] Kyosuke Sakakura: Creating Diverse Places to Belong at Universities and Local Communities

2023/03/06

After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities are gradually returning to normal. However, I wonder if it is just my imagination. The students in my seminar—the "COVID generation" who entered in 2020, had no entrance ceremony due to the campus lockdown, and had online classes for over six months—seem a bit more timid and hesitant compared to previous students. They have little experience of staying out all night on a whim or planning their own trips, let alone the kind of adventure like "backpacking" where one wanders abroad without a fixed destination or duration. It is understandable that their good behavior stands out.

However, I also want them to be more bold in expressing their true selves. Now more than ever before the pandemic, they need a "place to belong" (ibasho) where they can be as they are and stay as they wish.

A "place to belong" refers to a physical space, but it is also a concept with psychological aspects. Norisada (2008) distinguished this from physical locations by using the term "psychological place to belong," defining it as "a relationship that serves as a spiritual anchor, providing a sense of security where one's true self is accepted." It is important not just to be physically able to "be there," but to feel psychologically accepted. For a place to be felt as a psychological place to belong, there must be an accepting relationship. Conversely, even without a physical space, if such a relationship exists, that becomes a place to belong. This is why many young people feel that online communities are their place to belong.

What about the campus? Is it a place where one can be physically present and find spiritual support? Is it becoming such a place to belong?

Gates were installed for infection control (do not enter unless for essential business), and silent eating was requested in school cafeterias divided by partitions (do not engage in unnecessary interaction). As a result, a safe campus was achieved in terms of infection control, but from the perspective of a place to belong, these were nothing short of fatal exclusion and division. It is the exact opposite of a "university as a place to belong" that welcomes diverse people, recognizes diverse ways of being, and encourages diverse ways of involvement. Even before COVID, campuses did not necessarily have enough places for students to freely "hang out" and for different types of people to meet, but it can be said that the pandemic certainly accelerated the transformation of the campus into a managed space (a non-place to belong).

The authors used to operate a place called "Mita no Ie" (Mita House). It was a small "house" in a back alley near the Mita Campus, rented from an old private home and renovated with faculty and student volunteers. It continued modestly for seven years from 2006 to 2013 with the support of the local shopping district.

It was an "ambiguous" place located "between" the university and the community—neither a classroom nor a pub. Faculty members served as "daily masters" on different days of the week, and while classes or seminars were sometimes held there, other times "dinner parties" were held where a wide variety of people gathered. Activities for "small international exchange" crowded with many international students were also held every week. Sometimes exhibitions or workshops were held, and on other days there were no particular plans at all, with faculty and students just relaxing as they pleased.

Mita no Ie was a mysterious place where diverse people gathered and diverse interactions occurred spontaneously. For example, even when holding a class, unexpected things that would never happen in a classroom occurred one after another. During class, local residents or graduates would visit. In the kitchen, dinner preparations would start, or students would start making and drinking coffee. Before we knew it, not only students and faculty, but also international students, graduates, nearby office workers, and shop owners—people of different generations, positions, and nationalities who would never have met if not for Mita no Ie—were somehow sitting together naturally, chatting and talking.

One day, sociologist Yasushi Ogura said to me, "Mita no Ie is more free than a gay bar." Communication in a gay bar creates a momentary flat relationship by having the bar master overturn generally believed values to punch a hole in the social hierarchy. Mita no Ie achieves a gentle relationship without hierarchy among diverse people without such manipulation. He said those words in admiration. I remember being very happy.

Because Mita no Ie was such an uncertain and fluid place, unlike being recognized as a student just by sitting politely in a classroom, one had to constantly be "someone" within the relationship with the person in front of them. Some students found that lack of structure difficult. However, for the many people who visited repeatedly, Mita no Ie was a place different from a campus, an office, or a restaurant—a place that could only be described as Mita no Ie—and I believe it was a rare place where diverse people were allowed to connect naturally with themselves and others.

Let me introduce another example. In the "Multi-generational Place to Belong Created with Yugawara Children" project, which began as part of joint research between Keio University and Yugawara Town, we held an "online place to belong" in 2020 when we could no longer open physically due to COVID. It was a place where children whose classes were closed could participate from home, and we prepared various contents taking advantage of the online format. There were many benefits unique to being online, such as children who usually cannot come to the physical location participating and getting a glimpse of their home lives, but there were also things we could not do. By experimenting online, the important factors for a physical space to become a place to belong were brought to light.

These were elements such as: equality of opportunity for use, participation of people without a specific purpose, mutual observation, spontaneous collaboration, the role of "being there," and the context created by a sense of co-presence (Ban and Sakakura 2022). Physical places to belong offer equal opportunity for use regardless of differences in internet environments, and people can participate whether they have a purpose or not. In the case of online, it is difficult to drop by aimlessly, and as a result, the diversity of people who gather decreases.

Furthermore, one can sense the state of the people who happen to gather—including their physical and emotional aspects, not just their words. Even if they do nothing, the fact that a person is physically "there" not only acknowledges their existence, but "being there" itself can fulfill a role. For example, the presence of a baby or an elderly person can soften the atmosphere of the place. And even without a facilitator, natural interactions between the people present are likely to occur. Within this context of sharing space and time, each person's sense of comfort emerges. A psychologically safe place to belong requires tolerant relationships, but these are thought to be things that arise from the context of the place based on a sense of co-presence.

How can we envision such a place of gentle but open relationships that are not closed off to just acquaintances and friends in today's university? Now that it has been confirmed that classes can be conducted remotely, the meaning of what a physical campus should be is being questioned.

According to Itami (1999), a "place" (ba) is "a framework of a situation where people participate, observe each other consciously or unconsciously, communicate, understand each other, influence each other, and have common experiences," and it is precisely this role as a "place" that is being demanded of the campus. Furthermore, the university as a place is expected to function to create new connections, activities, knowledge, and technology from the co-presence of people from various positions and academic fields, accepting diversity. "Mita no Ie" was a place to belong, but for some reason, it was also a place of creative encounters where new connections and activities were born.

What I am currently working on in the Oyamadai district of Setagaya Ward, the local area of my workplace, Tokyo City University, is a laboratory within a shopping district. The first floor is a community space, and up the stairs is a small laboratory named "Oyamachi Living Lab." Various people from local children to the elderly gather here, and students also come and go on a daily basis. In such a place of daily life, we conduct various design and research projects to realize a well-being society with companies, neighboring elementary and junior high schools, hospitals, and NPOs.

This is just one example, but I hope that in various forms, places that can be spiritual anchors for students, faculty, and local residents, as well as laboratories for a tolerant society where diversity is accepted, will exist throughout and around universities. New knowledge will surely be born from there.

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