Community Practice Lab (CPL) Primary Lead Dr. Ryan Lavalley and CPL Community Engagement Fellow Sayoko Kawabata facilitated cross-university partnership and shared knowledge rooted in community occupation during a September 2024 trip to Japan.
First, Ryan and Sayoko traveled to Saitama to attend the Japanese Society for the Study of Occupation’s 2024 Annual Conference, where Ryan delivered the keynote presentation. Ryan’s keynote, “Social Transformation with a Pragmatic Imagination,” covered the practical implications for synthesizing a pragmatic and critical theoretical framework to inform community engaged research and program development. Sayoko generously helped interpret Ryan’s keynote in real time.
Also at the conference, Sayoko presented “Globalization Observed in Play of Children in the U.S. South,” sharing part of her doctoral dissertation findings. Sayoko’s dissertation, which focuses on play among youth in Hillsborough, N.C., emerged from her longstanding engagement with the Fairview community through the CPL. Her presentation focused on the impact of globalization as she observed many Japanese influences in children’s lives in the Fairview community. Sayoko also highlighted the importance of reflecting on researcher positionality in ethnography, as Sayoko was attuned to these observations because of her Japanese background.
The following week, Ryan and Sayoko traveled to Nagoya to visit the Nagoya University School of Medicine and Department of Health Sciences. Ryan and Sayoko met with leadership in the School of Medicine to envision future partnership among the universities. They also connected with faculty, students, and researchers advocating for dementia capable communities, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability access in Japan.
“Sayoko was an instrumental partner in furthering our institutional relationship with Nagoya University,” said Ryan. “She brings a wealth of experiential knowledge around building and facilitating partnerships in community. I am also grateful for all the time and energy she put into facilitating ideas, collaboration, communication, and interpretation during these conversations.”
As part of this visit, Ryan provided a lecture for Nagoya University’s Department of Health Sciences. The session, “Building Systems for Aging in Community,” shared the CPL’s partnerships with community nonprofits and local governments to develop age-friendly communities. Ryan also shared best practices for creating and sustaining coalitions around aging, based on the CPL’s experience administering the UNC Carolina Aging Network, the Orange County Home Preservation Coalition, and strategically coordinating HOPE NC’s collective impact model.
Ryan and Sayoko’s last stop together was Kyoto, where Sayoko attended high school and university and developed a passion for occupational therapy as a tool for advancing social justice. They visited the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum, which honors the ethnic Zainchi Korean community in Kyoto. The community started as a living quarter for Koreans forcibly relocated by the Japanese government to build a military airfield during Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula in the early 1900s. At the museum, Ryan and Sayoko learned about the Utoro neighborhood’s history of building community amidst societal discrimination.
“It was a joy to be able to introduce my home country and colleagues in Japan to Ryan,” said Sayoko. “The whole trip was an opportunity to ‘learn through doing together,’ and I rediscovered various aspects of Japan and its culture from a different perspective. I truly appreciate the 27th Japanese Society for the Study of Occupation Conference Committee members and the Nagoya University staff for the warm welcome and the UNC Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs for sponsoring our visit.”