While Japanese education has been extensively studied, it has hardly been seen as a theoretical and methodological resource in the field of comparative and international education. This paper explores the possibility and the limitation of using Japanese philosophy as an epistemic resource for educational research, aiming to multiply the ways of knowledge production.

In the field of educational research in general, and comparative and international education in particular, Japan has been extensively studied in terms of prominent reference societies in Asia (see Santos and Centeno 2021), a point of comparison (e.g. Takeda and Williams 2008), and a comparative link in global educational governance (e.g. Willis and Rappleye 2011). In the large body of English-language literature, Japan has been often studied as a research object rather than a theoretical and methodological resource. To put differently, Japanese education has been a data source or an ‘empirical other’ where ‘theories are applied, revised or domesticated’ rather than an ‘epistemic other’ that provides a source of new theoretical insights and develops alternative theories (Takayama 2019: 147, 153). Recently, scholars have explored the possibility of using Japan as an epistemic resource in conducting comparative education (e.g. Hayashi 2021; Takayama 2020: Rappleye 2020), aiming to multiply the epistemological resource to study and highlight the more proliferated worldview in education.

Resonating with the current scholarly attempt to move beyond the Western horizon in knowledge production, I experiment the use of Japanese philosophical thoughts, namely, Watsuji Tetsurō’s (1889–1960) comparative phenomenological study in comparative educational research. I autoethnographically explore how my epistemic mindset has changed during my PhD journey through a slow conversation with Watsuji’s study on milieu, relationality and ontological inquiry into human beings. The aim of my study is to multiply epistemological resources for educational research by reflecting and telling how I was destabilised by Japanese philosophy in (un)learning the Japanese education system.

In 2018, I initiated my doctoral studies on policy transfer, taking Japan as an empirical case to examine how the European Framework (CEFR) was adapted to foreign language education reforms in the non-European context. In the initial dissertation writing stage, I was rather interested in analysing why and how Japan failed in adapting the European ideas – or more precisely, plurilingualism and multilingualism – to the reform of foreign language education. In retrospect, I uncritically accepted the ‘failure’ discourse on foreign language education in Japan which circulates in academic and social discourses (see Aspinall, 2012; Terasawa 2015). I also understood internationalisation and globalisation as a synonym of Europeanisation/modernisation and assumed it beneficial and crucial to cultivate the Japanese people’s global competency.

Reading literatures on post- and decolonial thinking, I became uncomfortable with my initial research questions which were formed on the Eurocentric understanding of modernisation and civilization. And I have eventually come to think that as encouraging the value of progress, improvement, and global competency (Silova, 2019), I had been taking the liberty to position the Japanese system as ‘developing’ and the European and global education policy as ‘advanced’.

Literature on post- and decolonialism in education motivated me to examine the Japanese case of policy transfer from a different perspective, drawing upon a different epistemological base. Searching alternative concepts and analytical tools to study the Japanese education system, I started reading Japanese philosophy including Watsuji, and accordingly, I became more interested in exploring the inquiry of power in relation to policy transfer. In the autoethnographic study which I present in ECER 2023, I tell my story of transformation through dialogues with Watsuji.

The study uses my experiences documented in a form of diary from January 2015 to December 2021, situating its writing genre into autoethnography (Ellis et al., 2011; Maréchal, 2010). Using deep and careful self-reflection – or reflexivity – on autobiography, the study explores how my understanding of foreign language education in Japan, European idea(l)s of plurilingualism, and ‘successful and failure’ policy transfers changed through learning Watsuji’s notions of fūdo [climate or milieu], aidagara [interconnectedness between people], and ningen [human beings as individuals but simultaneously social beings] (see Watsuji [1934] 2007, [1935] 1991). Drawing upon the autoethnographical methodology, I attempt to illustrate a sense-making process through telling a story on doing research (Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis 2015). In so doing, I also explore the possibility and the limitation of using Japanese philosophy in educational research. Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research method that draws upon different scholarly traditions such as autobiography, narrative studies, ethnography, and art-based research (Cooper and Lilyea 2021). Autoethnography emerged in response to the need for new and changing ideals for research, a recognition of the limits of scientific knowledge, and an appreciation for personal narrative and story (Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis 2015). Autoethnographers deeply and reflexively reflect their own lived experience and write stories of/about the self, placing personal (insider) experiences within the social, cultural and political context. Inviting readers/audiences to engage in the unfolding story of experience and seeking for their responses, autoethnographers offer nuanced and specific knowledge of particular lives rather than general information (Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis 2015). While the scholarly advantages of autoethnography have been increasingly recognized among educational researchers, the reasons for engaging in autoethnography often vary depending on the researcher (Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis 2015). Autoethnography to my paper is a way of inquiry to challenge norms of research practices and accordingly contribute to a scholarly conversation. The paper attempts to pose a question to readers, especially those who work on Japan-related topics, on the possibilities and limitations (and pitfalls) of decolonial knowledge projects that adapt a conceptual ‘insertion’ from Japanese philosophy. The nature of the paper is thus experimental: It ultimately aims to open a space for fruitful discussions toward pluriversality of epistemic resources for comparative and international education.

Firstly, Watsuji’s study on relationality allowed me to find new scholarly pathways to comparative study on foreign language education system in Japan and Finland. Given that human existences are individuals, but simultaneously, social beings who can only exist in relationality, I have come to think more on the social aspect of language learning. Taking school education as only one dimension that shapes one’s language proficiency, I identified a way to studying the Japanese case of policy transfer other than a case of malfunctioning policy borrowing and educational reform. Secondly, drawing upon Watsuji’s phenomenological notion of fūdo, plurilingualism can be understood as practice – a verb – but not a metaphysical concept or idea(l) – a subjective – to be realised in a top-down way of policy implementation. Plurilingualism is essentially not a reform idea for modernisation of foreign language education that can be ‘borrowed’ from elsewhere to be adapted to another context, but rather, a state of being that emerges in everyday practices formed in interpersonal communication, the climatic condition, the geographical location, and the political and historical background. Watsuji’s notions allowed me to reflect and (un)learn the familiar context and critically approach to Eurocentrism in my mindset. On the other hand, I have to admit that using Japanese philosophy stimulated my nationalistic sentiment that I am able to use a rich knowledge resource developed in my language and in my culture. Such sentiment encourages me to contribute to decolonial project of developing epistemological resources by using Otherness in myself while making a pitfall trap of orientalism and nationalism. To conclude, I invite researcher colleagues to together reflect upon the use of their own biography and knowledge resources developed by ‘epistemic Other’, aiming for pluriversality of epistemic resources for comparative and international education.

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