Dimensions in Practice Profile: Professor Yukari Seko
Yukari Seko’s research includes a vast array of research participants, collaborators, and trainees. From all of them she has “learned so, so much.” This includes her young son whose school experience formed the basis of Seko’s recent SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
“It is about lunch box shaming,” Seko explains. “Last week our paper (external link) about the pilot project with Japanese immigrant families came out. It is such a rewarding experience to learn from children about their experience at school around their lunchbox. The research project actually comes out of my son’s experience. He was, back then, 5 years old. He received a negative comment about his Japanese-style lunch and felt embarrassed about his favorite food. I asked him, ‘Can I do a study about this? And can I have your voice in this research?’ He’s very proud of inspiring me!”
“The research took a creative arts-informed approach with each participant creating their own lunch box. We just sent the paper out to everyone who participated in our pilot project, and we created a YouTube video (external link) – so I have just learned how to put Japanese subtitles on a video!”
Yukari’s research trajectory started with her first two postdoctoral fellowships, at CAMH and University of Guelph, with a focus on mental health, specifically on internet communications among people who self-injure. Yukari wanted to understand how to better reach out to people whose behavior is so stigmatized. Yukari next spent three years as a postdoc at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital working with young people with disabilities and their parents, looking at how communication in a clinical setting needs to evolve, especially to meet the needs of young people. “I started to think maybe the problem is clinicians, that they have to change how they communicate in order to provide more equitable and inclusive care.”
Yukari’s research, conducted with young clients and families of Holland Bloorview, has produced both traditional scholarly outputs as well as arts-informed, public-facing, inclusive work: “We interviewed youth with disabilities, created 2 reader’s theatre scripts, and created an inter-professional education workshop titled “Transitions Theatre” with 2 parents of disabled youth and one young person with disabilities. Since October 2020, we have facilitated 4 virtual Transitions Theatres, in which learners read the scripts and discuss how to support disabled youth and their families (listen to the voice drama (external link) ).”
Yukari sees all her research areas connected by, as she says, investigating “How we can change our communication style, especially when we are in a position of power or privilege. We must be aware of how we can make research more inclusive so that diversity thrives.”
All Yukari’s research has a great sensitivity to equity and inclusion, and I asked her where she thinks her commitment comes from.
“I think it is informed, really, by my experience of coming to Canada as an international graduate student, and the experience of immigrating and having a child here. Before coming to Canada, I never had to say, ‘I am Japanese.’” On the whole, Yukari sees such re-centering as an advantage: “In Canada, identities can be at the centre of your research. Back in Japan, I was in the dominant position, and didn’t have that privilege of having myself at the center of my research.”
“But,” she adds with a smile, “it has its pros and cons. I have learned the term “microaggression” – and that is something I have experienced frequently. This week in my class I’m talking about race and ethnicity in professional communication. One assigned reading is Deputy Minister Daniel Quan-Watson’s response to Rex Murphy’s National Post article arguing that there is no racism in Canada. And I really love that the DM wrote that open letter (external link) and discussed micro- and macro-aggressions he has faced. I think in Canada we are now in more a reflective moment about our experience.” Which experiences drive our sense of knowing something, Yukari wonders: “Is it coming from our life experience or our disciplinary training? Or is it coming from our research experience or our social relationships?”
“I have learned so much – so, so much -- from research participants. They come from so many diverse backgrounds. Sometimes they will tell me that my way of asking is not nice, that my question is not that great – and that is very helpful for me to hear. I can then reflect, understand my positionality, and bring it back [to the research].”
Yukari addresses power relations, equity, and inclusive practices in her SRC “right from the get go.” One of those starting points is creating a research team, looking through applicants’ CVs for the best combination of skills and experience: “The current SSHRC-funded segment of the lunchbox study focuses on youth, aged 16-25, who are talking retrospectively about lunch box shaming. We are focusing on Indian, Chinese, and Filipino communities. I have hired undergrad and grad students who identify with one of these racialized communities [of the study]."
Clearly, for Yukari, the training and mentoring component of her research is vital. She is very self-reflexive, fully aware, as she says, “that I’m still in the process of learning how to train research assistants and students. I always want to learn from the students on my teams how I can be a better supervisor, a better educator. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve learned from that. Whenever I make a mistake, I reflect on it, and I return to the person and work together to incorporate what I’ve learned back into the training.”
Attention to equity and inclusivity in research and creative activities is a matter of ongoing self-education for us all. It is experiential. As Yukari says, “You don’t know how non-inclusive your research is until you hit a wall – until something happens, or a participant points out something to you, shows you how they cannot participate in the research because of how you designed it. Hitting that wall means you have to open up a door.”
