Lively discussion during the Intercultural Cities Seminars in Japan

As reported on the Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) Newsroom, Hamamatsu City and the Japan Foundation co-organized the Intercultural Cities Symposium in Hamamatsu from 10-11 October 2024. The main event, which took place on 11 October, featured international experts and academics as well as mayors and deputy mayors from cities in Japan, South Korea and Poland. Preceding and following this event, there were two specialized seminars on intercultural cities from a comparative perspective and inter-municipal collaboration.  

The session on October 10th, which took place at the Hamamatsu Kamoe Art Center (https://kamoeartcenter.org/), was part of the above-mentioned symposium and intended primarily for local government officials but also in attendance were representatives from the regional and national governments. The keynote speaker was Professor Bob White from the University of Montreal and the panelists were Professor Oh Jung-Eun (Hansung University), Mr. Jakub Mazur (Deputy Mayor of Wrocław, Poland), Mr. Furuhashi Hiroki (International Affairs Division, Hamamatsu City), and Professor Yamawaki Keizo (Meiji University) chaired the session. Professor White talked about the Intercultural Cities Programme and how participation in ICC can benefit local municipal governments. The three panelists talked about the city network for promoting migrant inclusion in their respective countries. After the discussion, there were questions about the impact of intercultural policies on social cohesion and about how majority groups respond to intercultural policy.

On 12 October, Professor Yamawaki organized a seminar at the Nakano Campus of Meiji University in Tokyo on the topic of networking between intercultural cities. The seminar, entitled “Leveraging the Power of Intercultural Cities: City-based Networks and Inter-municipal Collaboration”, featured a presentation by Prof. White, who leads a research team on intercultural dynamics in cities (www.labrri.net). He is also the co-ordinator for the Québec Intercultural Cities network (Réseau des municipalités en immigration et en relations interculturelles, www.remiri.net). In attendance were researchers from Hokkaido University of Education, Chiba University, ex-high-ranking officials from the IOM and two officials from the City of Hamamatsu.

Based on his experience from working with cities in the French-speaking Canadian province of Québec, Prof. White talked about the distinctiveness of the intercultural model compared to other more well-known models such as republicanism and multiculturalism. After giving some background information about the ICC model and the ICC program, he presented the notion of “leveraging” using examples from intercultural cities in Québec to illustrate how collaboration between cities can provide policymakers and decision-makers with leverage in relation to regional or national governments. Discussion following the presentation was very lively, including several questions about the focus on interactions in the intercultural model and about how local governments interface with regional or national authorities on the question of how to assist asylum seekers and refugees. At the end of the discussion, Prof. Koji Junichiro from Hokkaido University of Education commented on the presentation and discussion, which focused on the fact that there are no intercultural cities in Canada outside of Québec and whether or not Québec can be considered a “national network” since it is not a country.