Researcher's Profile

Tojisha-Kenkyu is the practice in which many people with some difficulty such as disabilities and diseases study the difficulty of their own with the help of people with the same difficulty. The practice is unique to this country and was first carried out by people with schizophrenia, and gradually spread into people with various kinds of difficulty such as addiction patients and cerebral palsy.

In an approach called the “co-production”, users (Tojisha) who were merely passive consumers for goods, services and knowledge, actively participate in the production process for those since the initial stage. This approach is about to spread around the world in recent years.

In an inclusive research environment, many people with different ability could demonstrate their full performance and pursue well-being by sharing their weakness through open dialogue. To construct such environment, we need to realize an organizational culture which is implemented not only with deep understanding of lived experience of minorities, but also with humbleness and psychological safety. This organizational culture should be implemented among minority-communities as well. We have developed a learning program to implement such culture using Tojisha-Kenkyu and provided minority-communities and laboratories with it through faculty development and outreach movement. The outcome is evaluated by qualitative analysis such as ethnography and ethnomethodology in addition to traditional quantitative methods.