Makiguchi Tsunesaburo and Language, Value-Creative Composition Instruction, and the Geography of Identity in Community Studies: A Response to Politicized Imagining and Ineffective Critical Approaches

Abstract

In this article, the author examines Makiguchi Tsunesaburo's philosophy and practice of human geography (jinsei chirigaku), community studies (kyodoka), and composition instruction based on “value-creating pedagogy” (soka kyoikugaku) for thinking through and responding to two competing trends intersecting language, identity, and education in the contemporary United States—the politicized imagining of America and increasingly ineffective critical approaches to second language education. As the politicized imagining and language policies Makiguchi faced in wartime Japan are echoed, though in substantively different form, in the contemporary United States, the author draws on Makiguchi's own words in these areas to think through and suggest ways contemporary educators can “create value” from the two aforementioned trends intersecting language, identity, and education in the United States.

Keywords:

• Makiguchi
• Soka (value creation)
• language
• identity
• composition
• community studies
• critical pedagogy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Jeff Frank, Patricia Gándara, Jim Garrison, Andrew Gebert, Andy Kaplan, and Radhika Rao for their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions. Any remaining errors are my own.

Notes

¹Perhaps more illuminating than James's message is supporters' and opponents' online point-counterpoint (not to mention parody videos), in which they debate the historical righteousness of James's proposals, U.S. language policy, and the legitimacy of regional dialects and vernaculars. As one James supporter posted: “Let's move now to make English the official language, [sic] while we're still majority!” (“We speak English,” 2010).