Soka University Tokyo · 2026
Research through art.
Developed through artistic practice across Latin America and Japan.
The Central Proposition
Music carries cultural identity across generations — and generates the relational intelligence that intercultural encounter demands.
Two MA theses developed at Soka University Tokyo explore these dimensions separately — and together they form a single framework for practice.
Research Line I
Panamanian folk song as decolonial narrative — music as living archive, as collective memory, as resistance to cultural erasure. This research listens to what songs carry that history cannot say.
Publication
Sounds of Identity: Panamanian Folk Songs as Decolonial Narratives of Cultural Memory and Collective Reimagining
Patricia Vlieg · Soka University, 2026
Latin America · Decolonial Studies · Cultural Identity
Research Line II
Conflict unfolds through bodies, time, and emotion — yet practitioners are trained as if it does not. This research proposes music as a practice that cultivates the relational intelligence conflict transformation demands.
Publication
From Musicking to Mediating: Embodied Knowledge in Professional and Intercultural Conflict Mediation
Vilma Esquivel · Soka University, 2026
Peacebuilding · Intercultural Dialogue · Embodied Practice
Where Both Lines Meet
One research line asks what music preserves. The other asks what music makes possible. Together, they form a single argument — for art as both archive and practice.
From Research to Practice
This research does not remain in the university. It is tested and applied in every initiative — shaping program formats, guiding facilitation, and generating new knowledge through practice.
Peace Boat · 2026
Concerts, lectures, and workshops for 800+ passengers across 30+ nationalities — research applied in conditions of real intercultural encounter.
Sea Bridges · 2027
Panama–Japan as a long-term case study. Two-week bilateral residency in Imabari — youth co-creation, community integration, documentary.
In Harmony · Educational Arm
The educational dimension of the platform — where research meets learning, community, and the formation of intercultural sensibility from the ground up.
Positioning
This research sits at the intersection of two knowledge traditions that rarely encounter each other. It draws from Latin American decolonial thought, Japanese concepts of relational practice, and Western frameworks for conflict transformation — without reducing any of them.
Panama and Japan are not incidental to this work. They are its laboratory — two cultures with a documented fifty-year relationship, tested through concerts, residencies, institutional encounters, and sustained human connection.
Collaboration
This work is open to collaboration with institutions, researchers, and practitioners whose interests align with this approach. Collaborations are developed with care — the right ones deepen and extend the work.
Academic Partnership
Co-publication, framework application, and academic exchange with institutions aligned with this scope.
Applied Research
For organizations applying research to intercultural facilitation, leadership development, or conflict transformation.
Field Research
For practitioners working in embodied intercultural practice — joint fieldwork and contribution to the expanding body of knowledge.
Documentation
We welcome conversations with publishers, documentarians, and academic journals aligned with our scope.
From Research to Documentary
This research is currently being extended into a documentary project developed through the Peace Boat Residency 2026. The film captures how these frameworks operate in real intercultural conditions — across bodies, cultures, and lived encounter.
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