Two years since having last visited the island of Japan, I’ve been granted the rare chance to return as a slightly more mature dilletante in Japanese culture. If you’re interested in my first experience there, check the study abroad 2008 pages.
My current trip has been made available to me in no small part through the efforts of Fred Borgen, Ph.D. (whose recent work in career exploration can be found here); and David Campbell, Ph.D. These two researchers/academicians established the International Travel Fund to support scholarly activities in the international community. I was both surprised and extremely grateful to discover that I received this year’s award.
I will be traveling to Japan to study in part the devastation of the earthquake and how persons are coping with the tragedy and also to examine how Eastern religion may differ from western religion in its role in forgiveness and forbearance. Forbearance is the tendency to conceal or minimize one’s problems in order to avoid burdening other’s with one’s own problems. It is intimately related to collectivist values and the desire to maintain interpersonal harmony. One of the scales I will be using is Moore & Constantine’s Collectivist Coping Styles Measure (2005; The measure is public domain and the article can be found online here). I’ll be studying these things as I travel along the Shikoku Pilgrimage.
My departure date is May 22nd, a few short weeks away. Once I arrive in Japan, I intend to use this blog as both a way to explore some of the research questions I will be encountering on the trip as well as to document and catalogue my experiences. In the meantime, I’ll be using it to explore my preparations.
Overall, I am extremely excited by this opportunity, and feel that I can contribute significantly to the research on coping with traumatic events that has become more and more relevant since 9/11. My only reservations about this trip surround multicultural competence; but, so long as I remain open to reflecting on my own experiences and potential biases surrounding religion, spirituality, and coping, I believe that the experience will be incredibly meaningful.
