Is it more like "someone else's problem" than "your problem"?
Recommendation for "Participant Research"

Hello, this is the courtyard.
I am often asked how to make things my own and think about them, and even at work I often hear people say, "Be a stakeholder!" The only rule on the Monosas site is to speak in the first person, and the subject is "I." It is important to speak from the perspective of "yourself."

It's important to think about things from a personal perspective. If you don't think about things from a personal perspective, you won't get serious.
It's all about me... Before I knew it, my CPU was running at full speed, and everything was about me. I know it's important, but it's so exhausting...

In the midst of all this, I was struck by the "Other People's Business Method" that I learned about at a study group on "Participant Research," which I have been following since last year. In a world where we are expected to make things "our own," what method is there that deliberately makes things "other people's business"...?!

Participant research, which goes against the trend (?!), may provide a new perspective on various aspects of "working, living, and living" (a phrase you may have heard somewhere). In this article, I would like to introduce a part of participant research, which is full of experience and ingenuity.

What is Participant Research? (Wiki mode, sometimes subjective)

Participant research originated at Bethel House in Urakawa, Hokkaido, and began as a self-help activity for people with mental illnesses.

Bethel House was established by social worker Mukaiyachi Ikuyoshi, and is a community-like place where people with conditions such as schizophrenia and alcoholism live together and make and sell products made from kelp, a local specialty.

A photo from when Beteru House was first established. When Mukaiyachi asked, "Do you want to make some money?", the members' eyes lit up. (From a slide by Mukaiyachi, who spoke at "Tobira x Beteru House" on November 26, 2017)

Beteru has a number of excellent proverbs, such as "Build a company where you can slack off without worry," "Use your mouth, not your hands," "Meetings are better than three meals a day," "Problems galore, but everything's going smoothly," "Hop, step down," "Disclose your weaknesses," "If you come to Beteru, you'll get sick," etc. There are so many more to list, but do these alone convey just how humorous the organization is? Why are people who are going through such great hardships so cheerful and happy?

When people with schizophrenia honestly talk to others about their experiences, such as visual and auditory hallucinations, they are often deemed strange, abnormal, or scary, and their experiences themselves are often denied. This makes it difficult for them to relate to themselves, as well as to others, and causes many difficulties in life.

The beginning of "Participant Research" was when I tried to reinterpret the difficult experiences that were continually rejected by others and myself in the form of "research." As soon as I expressed the hardships that I had been unable to make others understand and that I had been attached to as a "research theme," they mysteriously became an issue that touched both others and myself.

The real joy of "stakeholder research" is not to "erase the suffering," but to find ways to "handle" and "come to terms with" suffering. Until now, mental health professionals have treated suffering (symptoms) as "meaningless symptoms to be simply removed" ^*1 , but symptoms can also reflect a person's life up to that point, as well as the distortions and imperfections of society. Is it really possible to "disregard" this background, erase the past, and move on with life?

There are many suggestions to be made about hardships. Rather than erasing them, find a way to live with them, and repeat the process of trial and error. I think this is difficult, but even if hardships come again and again, it will help you to continue to recover, and ultimately to gain the strength to live in a true sense of the word. Participant research is full of ideas for helping yourself and living.

Nowadays, participatory research is no longer limited to Beteru Home, but is beginning to be practiced with people with all kinds of problems, from addictions, developmental disorders, stuttering, and hearing impairments to issues surrounding gender and children.
This is not something that only special people can do; anyone can do this research, whether they are children or adults, students or working adults, as a way of reexamining the human condition.

Middle voice and research on the participants

Mukaiyachi of Beteru House describes the arson committed by Beteru members as "an arson incident occurred," rather than saying, "Mr./Ms. so-and-so committed arson."
What on earth does this mean?

First of all, this phrase excludes the question of "who is responsible" and speaks only of the "event." This is because the moment "responsibility" is brought to the forefront, the discussion stops and the space for dialogue is taken away.
Even in case-seekers, we do not ask who is to blame, because we study how it becomes difficult to talk about something as soon as we bring up the issue of someone's "will" or "responsibility." Whose "will" is the issue here in the first place.

However, in my surroundings (and probably in society as well), it is considered good to take "active" action with "will" such as "taking action on your own" or "trying things proactively." On the other hand, a passive attitude is often criticized as "he has a weak attitude" or "he has no sense of responsibility."
That being said, how much can we really say was done solely by someone's will?

For example, what if you fall asleep at work? If you're in a meeting, it's pretty embarrassing. However, the way people blame you will change depending on whether the reason for your lack of sleep is because you stayed up too late playing games the night before, or because you stayed up all night helping your team with an urgent project.

Another example is alcoholism, which is a bit more complicated. When an alcoholic turns to alcohol, do those around him or her see them as having a "weak will" and blame them? People who fall into addiction often have complex backgrounds that are intertwined with poverty, abuse, and other factors. In that case, can we say for certain that turning to alcohol is of their own volition?

Similar situations occur around us, with varying degrees of seriousness. In those cases, it is too shortsighted to simply place the responsibility on the subject of the act. I also think that the term "personal responsibility" is sometimes a scary word. In participatory research, we do not assign "responsibility" to any one person.

There is a book by the philosopher Koichi Kokubun called "The World of Middle Voice" ^※2 . In it, he writes that in medieval Europe, there was a third voice called "middle voice" that was neither active nor passive.

Koichi Kokubun (left) explains the middle voice at a symposium for the contemporary art exhibition "Shibikomisen 2017" held at the Tokorozawa School Lunch Center.

In the society we live in, when an action is taken, we always ask who "did it" or "had it done" and are asked where "responsibility" lies. However, this book raises the question of whether everything can be divided into "doing" and "being done."

For example, Kokubun-san often gives the example of "I fall in love with someone." According to Kokubun-san, it is not an active feeling like "Okay, I'm going to fall in love with this person from now on," nor is it a passive feeling that occurs when someone says, "Hey, start loving this person from now on."
If we think about it carefully, there are many phenomena in the world that cannot be interpreted as either active or passive.
The concept of "middle voice" brings this to light.

First of all, why is it that society is so quick to divide things into "doing" and "being done"? The book says that the trick is in grammar.

The languages we use today distinguish between active and passive verbs.
For example, to express "I appear" in English, you can say "I appear." In other words, it may sound strange, but you can also say "I am shown." This "I appear"/"I am show" can be divided into "active voice"/"passive voice" based on "who is the person with the will."

However, in ancient Europe, the distinction was made based on a different standard: "active voice/middle voice." According to the linguist Benveniste, who appears in the book, the distinction is as follows:

The distinction between "active voice" and "middle voice" is not based on whether the subject has a will or not, but on whether the subject is outside or inside the process. Here, "I appear" and "I am show" are both considered to be in the middle voice, and are like brothers.

Slides from the talk session "Middle Voice and the Philosophy of the Self" between Kokubun Koichi and Kumagai Shinichiro, held at WIRED CONFERENCE 2017 "WRD. IDNTTY." on October 10, 2017.

At some point, the "active/passive" grammar emerged, and the standard for thinking about things became the presence or absence of "will," and both "I appear" and "I am show" were forcibly divided into "active" and "passive."

As we think through this language, we have come to constantly "interrogate" our will and responsibility.

In participatory research, behavior is viewed as a "phenomenon," and "will" is not foregrounded. It is a space that has returned to the almost-disappeared "middle voice."
The "arson phenomenon" mentioned by Mukaiyachi at the beginning also creates a space where it can be discussed neutrally, with a middle voice attitude.
In order to talk about failures and hardships that are close to one's heart, one must find a way to make them something that can be discussed. I think that this is the creation of a middle voice linguistic space.

Researching "individually and together" - an example of the research style by the people involved

From here, I will introduce some specific styles of participatory research.

1. Group study with everyone

Research findings from the Participant Research written on a poster (2018 New Year's Participant Research Meeting in Yokohama)

At Bethel House, the birthplace of the Participant Research, there is a group-style research called the "Participant Research Meeting," which is the most common style. Here, we will introduce what it is like with reference to Satsuki Ayaya's "Let's start Participant Research!" ^*3 .

In the case of Beteru, the environment in which it is implemented is often as follows:

• Number of participants: About 10 to 20 people showed up to participate on that day.
• Facilitators: Two people will be in charge: the person involved and one able-bodied staff member.
• What you need: A whiteboard
• Seating: Form a circle
• Space: It would be good to have enough space for roleplaying.
• Time required: Not more than 1 hour

Moreover, the process is as follows:

1. All participants will introduce themselves and talk about their moods and recent developments.
2. Explain the rules and purpose of participatory research.
3. Members of the research community talk about the topics they would like to research.
4. The facilitator will ask questions and take notes on the whiteboard (the note-taker can be someone other than the facilitator).
5. Participants are free to make comments and ask questions.
6. Once the exchange is over, the parties involved talk about what they discovered and their impressions.
7. The moderator then shares thoughts and summarises the session, then the session comes to a close.

There are many ways to communicate your research topic, such as explaining it verbally, using diagrams and illustrations, or recreating situations through role-playing. Although we have listed the steps above, the basic principle is "freedom of choice."

Mukaiyachi says that the important thing in the research is "not to grasp experiences with preconceived notions," which is quite difficult... There is a way of listening called "reflecting," and I think it is quite close to this way of listening. (Reflecting will be introduced at the end of this article.)
How can we approach the narrator's worldview without preconceived ideas about their experiences? In participatory research, the listener's attitude is also important.

2. I'm tired of thinking of things as my own business! Think about the "other people's business method"

Next, I would like to introduce the "Other People's Business Method" that was lectured by Oya Hideaki at the Bethel Home Participant Research Practical Course in Machida, held on June 16th of this year, which I believe can be a concrete method for participant research that can be started immediately.

Mr. Oya presenting the "Other People's Business" method

Oya-san began hearing auditory hallucinations when he was in high school. He discovered the "Taningo Method" when he went to the US to see Bruce Springsteen's concert, which was his dream come true.

The concert venue was in Connecticut. He was planning to take a 14-hour flight from Narita to New York, then a train. That day, Oya couldn't sleep on the plane, and the train was delayed at the New York station. He was alone in an unfamiliar country, exhausted, and close to breaking down. At that moment, Oya suddenly started tweeting the following:

"Oya-kun, it looks like it's hard for you to stand."
"You look like you're about to cry at any moment."
"Ohya-kun, it seems you've already gone home."
"No, I can't go home. This is America. I have to make it to the hotel."
"It'll work out somehow." "Really?"

He said that once he started broadcasting his situation live as if it were someone else's problem, he suddenly felt a sense of relief.
This is how the Other People Method was born.

The Other-Human Method involves narrating yourself as if you were a player in a sports broadcast, allowing you to see yourself as if you were someone else, distance yourself from the world, and view yourself objectively.

The trick to using the Other People Method is to:

• Speaking in third person
• Describe body movements
• I don't explain my thoughts much
• Explain the surroundings objectively
• It would be even better if the commentator included some praising comments.
• In short sentences

The following were mentioned:

Video of the lecture

I have tried it myself, and it certainly helps me to see myself objectively. When you are in the midst of a hardship or problem, you can become trapped in it, lose your way, and have difficulty getting others to intervene. However, I think that the "method of making your own problems someone else's" is one way to separate yourself from the situation, look at yourself calmly, and share it with others.
I'm thinking of trying it out on a regular basis when I have a hard time at work... (As long as it's not a nuisance to those around me!)

It is not an escape from the difficulties of life,
Research as "expression"

I first learned about Participant Research after reading an interview with Mukaiyachi Ikuyoshi in Nishimura Yoshitetsu's book, "How are we all going to work and live?" ^*4 . I was struck by Mukaiyachi's words, "I wanted to get to the heart of the hardships of life," and since then I've been fascinated by Beteru House, and even went to the Beteru Festival last year (you can read the report here. Part 1 and Part 2. I should say at the outset that it's long, with two parts). The more I learn about "Participant Research" that I discovered there, the deeper it becomes, and the more intriguing it becomes. It has become a kind of supplement for me. This is because Participant Research is an act of "reclaiming one's own words."

Above all, it is very important that participatory research is fun. The struggles that the speakers talk about in participatory research are always unique, often humorous, and sometimes literary and creative. If I may say so without fear of being misunderstood, sometimes I even feel like I am reading a novel by Kenzaburo Oe. (But I only feel that way because I am a fan of Oe.)

Since participatory research is a place to talk about the real-life struggles of a person, it may be inappropriate to compare it to a novel. However, the more I learn about it, the more I feel that it has a creative scope, and distancing myself from myself as if I were the protagonist of a story and communicating with people outside is also an act of expression. It's a lot of fun.

Expressive activities may be a little cramped in a space that is only developed in an "active/passive" manner. Starting from "will," we want to make everything someone else's, and even our actions into someone else's property (as Koichi Kokubun calls it, "privatizing actions"). Can we speak freely?
In that sense, a middle voice research setting that does not start from "will" can be said to be a multi-layered, expressive, and creative space where all voices are permitted.

I often think about how this form of expression, participatory research, can be applied to everyday life.
This is because it is not just special people who have hardships and difficulties, but everyone has them. For example, hard work, not getting along with family, lack of money, power harassment, sexual harassment, dependency, bullying, inferiority complex, failures that only you make over and over again... There are countless examples, but if you express them outwardly, you may be able to find a solution.

I think even small things are fine. Participant research can give you hints to think about something. I hope that through participant research, life can become a little easier, more fun, and more interesting.

bonus:
Reflecting on "Look, listen, don't think" - Tips on how to listen to make participant research more enjoyable -

Notes from Takayuki Yahara's "Reflecting" workshop held on August 12, 2018. An image of Andersen's idea of conversation

Reflecting means to listen carefully to something, think about it, and then return your thoughts to the other person. I believe that this way of listening to reflecting is similar to the way people do it in participant research, so I would like to introduce it to you.

Reflecting was originally proposed by Norwegian psychiatrist Tom Andersen as a form of family therapy for patients with mental illness. ^*5
Until then, treatment interviews were mainly one-on-one between the patient and the interviewer, and the experts (doctors, therapists, etc.) who devised treatment measures would unilaterally observe the patient and unilaterally tell the patient the treatment method. The patient had no idea what process the experts had gone through to arrive at the treatment method.

Andersen introduced reflecting into this state, opened up the process of experts discussing it, and allowed patients and their families to know the context from which the treatment content was derived. They were also allowed to express their opinions and impressions. This allowed him to break away from the fixed relationship of observed = patient and observer = medical professional, and built a new therapeutic relationship in which both could be either.
Reflecting allows the patient to consider a variety of thoughts and is able to try out a treatment method that is satisfactory to the patient through dialogue.

Andersen is said to be saying, "Look, listen, don't think (don't analyze)" about how to listen in reflecting. He says it's important not to look at what the other person is saying through your own frame (for example, the "internalized professional frame"), but to "just listen" and try to get as close as possible to the speaker's worldview. (Clinician Goulishan also calls this the "attitude of ignorance.")

When listening to someone, if you are not careful, you will end up interpreting what they are saying from your own perspective, and as a result, it is common to not be able to "listen." Even in participatory research, it is important to get as close as possible to the worldview that the presenter sees.

First, look at the other person's world as it is, think about it later, and then reflect on it back to the speaker, and then listen again. By repeating this process, I believe the ideas in participatory research will become richer and more multi-layered.

References
*1 "Everyone's Research on the Parties" by Shinichiro Kumagai (published in " Everyone's Research on the Parties " Kongo Publishing, 2017)
*2 Koichi Kokubun, The World of Middle Voice: Archaeology of Will and Responsibility , Igaku-Shoin, 2017
*3 "Let's start research by people involved!" by Satsuki Ayaya (published in " Everyone's Research by People Involved ," Kongo Publishing, 2017)
*4 Yoshiaki Nishimura, " How will everyone work and live? ", Kobundo, 2017
*5 Takayuki Yahara, " Reflecting, " Nakanishiya Publishing, 2016