The Diversity Digital Media Project: Engaging Migrant Youth in Japan through Creative Practice

Shinsuke Funaki
Additional contact information
Shinsuke Funaki: Department of Social Welfare Science Faculty of Nursing and Social Welfare Science, Fukui Prefectural University

Japan Social Innovation Journal, 2014, vol. 4, issue 1, 9

Abstract: As a result of an increase of migrants in Fukui, a rural city of Japan since the 1990s, migrant youth have increased through the settlement of permanent residents and through international marriage. However, when migrant youth attempt to use digital media to potentially foster their relationships with the local community, the ‘Japanese only' environment can discourage them to make use of it for creating and extending their social networks in Japan. In 2011, a two day farm-stay camp in Fukui with four migrant youth was organized as a research project. Various locals, such as media artists and migrant support professionals supported migrant youths and helped them create a digital media production. I conducted both participant observation and interviews with participants to understand the ways in which these migrants and local Japanese interact with each other through the use of digital media. This paper explores two key questions. First, I examine how digital media can be employed for community engagement between migrant youth and the local community and how it can help them achieve cultural citizenship. Second, this paper examines how local Japanese participants perceive their attitude-change process in real encounters with migrants in Fukui through the use of digital media.

Keywords: Migrant Youth; Digital Media; Social Work Practice; Community Engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://doi.org/10.12668/jsij.4.9 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hyo:journl:v:4:y:2014:i:1:p:9

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Japan Social Innovation Journal from University of Hyogo Institute for Policy Analysis and Social Innovation Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by University of Hyogo Institute for Policy Analysis and Social Innovation ().