Abstract
Japan has witnessed a considerable increase in the population of residents with multicultural backgrounds (MCR), especially around urban areas. A majority of these MCR have nationalities of other Asian countries, many of whom, although an integral part of the Japanese labor force, do not speak the Japanese language. The aim of this study is to propose necessary policies for the promotion of coexistence with MCR in Japanese local governments. This study examined the current provisions made toward multicultural coexistence in the cultural plans put forward by local governments within Tokyo, as well as the regulation status of multilingual information and dissemination status of ordinances under such plans. The results indicated that only a handful of local governments actually used other languages when publishing regulations on websites, despite claiming to be local governments that recognize the necessity for multicultural coexistence and multilingual information dissemination in their plans. A common ground of cultural understanding must be reached between local residents and MCR to ensure successful integration. Especially with regulations, which are the rules made by local governments that also help define regional culture. In this regard, policies toward making these less obviously culturally-based rules more readily accessible to MRC is largely insufficient. Therefore, this study proposed an approach of conducting daily cultural negotiations and understanding of others upon having established the basis for common cultural understanding by translating not only fixed information regarding daily living divided into each task but also ordinances that indicate concept of living habits into multiple languages.
Author Information
Noriko Kurata, Tokyo University of Science, Japan
Yuko Kurata, Kansai Gaidai University, Japan
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress