By Kim Mi-kyoung
I thought this research project was over and done with when, in late February of this year, the Japanese university where I work refused to sign a memorandum of agreement on the ``Survey on the Japanese Perception of Territorial Disputes’’ project, commissioned by the Northeast Asian History Foundation.
The decision by the university executives arrived more than a month past the date on which the memorandum was supposed to be signed, saying that they could not approve the project due to its ``politically sensitive nature.’’
Nevertheless, they made it clear to me that this project was a personal initiative of my own, and that the university had nothing to do with it. The research agreement was, therefore, entered into between the Northeast Asian History Foundation and myself, in my capacity as an individual researcher. Honestly, I was not too disheartened by their decision.
Although not the best outcome, I cannot say that I did not see it coming. The issue indeed is an important one for Korea-Japan relations and a major variable for peace building in East Asia. Should ``political sensitivity’’ be a reason not to pursue a research topic, it would leave out plenty of worthwhile research themes.
After I decided to go at it alone, I went ahead with the survey, which made smooth progress until around the end of May. One day, I received a message from the institute’s administrative staff about a visitor (hereafter Mr. A) who left comments and questions to which he hoped to receive prompt answers from me.
To say that I was taken aback by this unexpected visit was an understatement. To add insult to injury, the administrative staff who relayed the message to me said, “You should conduct a questionnaire survey in an adequate manner. I would be pleased to advise you when you try another questionnaire survey next time.” I could not believe my ears, hearing these words from an untrained administrative staffer to a professional researcher who has been using survey methods in multiple projects.
His words could be interpreted as that I was just ``an ignorant, hapless foreigner’’ who did not know the adequate way of doing things in his country. And this was regardless of my sociological training, many years of living abroad including Japan, and survey research experience. The whole issue boiled down to the question of how to frame otherness.
With the university's refusal to approve the project, I could not use the institute’s address. The respondents were randomly selected using the public phone directory. As for the purpose and hypotheses, I explained that although they are stated in the research plan, it was customary practice in the research community not to reveal them before the publication of a study.
All of these explanations failed to dispel Mr. A’s misgivings, and he was unwilling to let the case rest. I was eventually literally losing sleep over the issue. It felt like I was surrounded by very unfriendly entities. Also, it didn’t help in my upset and anxious state to recall how my Japanese friends told me when I let them know I would be using my home address as the return address for survey questionnaires, not to be surprised if one day I find men wearing dark sunglasses waiting for me. They meant Japanese right-wing extremists.
Since this incident, the back-and-forth between myself and the university administration, particularly, the administrative staff mentioned earlier, and Mr. A continued incessantly, so much so that their never-ending demand for explanation and justification bordered on harassment. Mr. A would rebut my explanation that his address was obtained from the NTT’s phone directory by saying that he was be listed there and that I must have got hold of his address through illegal means.
The university would then demand that I submit material evidence proving that the phone number was obtained through the open and public channel through which I said I had obtained it. I would object to this demand on the basis of academic freedom, and the university threatened to take disciplinary actions against me, saying they could call for a disciplinary committee meeting.
When I submitted the phone book as evidence, the university administration did not trust its authenticity and compared it with the directory they had secured themselves. When my material matched the original, all the while acknowledging that he had wrongfully suspected me of wrongdoing, Mr. A demanded that I bring all phone directories I used during the random sampling process and re-enact step-by-step the entire process before him, while also stating the goal and hypotheses of the study to him.
The university urged me to comply with the latter demand. I responded to it by evoking the principle of confidentiality and privacy of survey participants. I told the university administration that if ever Mr. A, during my demonstration of the random sampling process, came into the knowledge of the names and addresses of any other survey participants, the university would be ``jointly held responsible.’’ These proved the magic words and the university administration immediately backed down.
As of now, the ``Survey on the Japanese Perception of Territory Disputes’’ is progressing at a speed much slower than expected, due to these various challenges and obstacles, but my own determination to see this project to its end has grown even firmer. This situation makes one indeed wonder whether all these demands placed upon a researcher are academic in nature or a disguised form of political pressure. Only time will tell.
The writer is an associate professor at Hiroshima City University’s Hiroshima Peace Institute. She can be reached at mkkim_33@hotmail.com.