Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being 'Half' in Japan (Critical Language and Literacy Studies)

279 Pages·2009·7.83 MB·English

by  Laurel Kamada

Hybrid Identities and
Adolescent Girls
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CRITICAL LANGUAGE AND LITERACY STUDIES
Series Editors: Vaidehi Ramanathan, University of California, USA; Bonny Norton,
University of British Columbia, Canada; and Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology,
Sydney, Australia
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Collaborative Research in Multilingual Classrooms
Corey Denos, Kelleen Toohey, Kathy Neilson and Bonnie Waterstone
English as a Local Language: Post-colonial Identities and Multilingual Practices
Christina Higgins
The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language
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CRITICAL LANGUAGE AND LITERACY STUDIES
Series Editors: Vaidehi Ramanathan, Bonny Norton
and Alastair Pennycook
Hybrid Identities and
Adolescent Girls
Being ‘Half’ in Japan
Laurel D. Kamada
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS
Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto
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Dedicated to Jonah,
the six girls of this study
and all the other families like ours in Japan
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Kamada, Laurel D.
Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being ‘Half’ in Japan/Laurel D. Kamada.
Critical Language and Literacy studies
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Identity (Psychology)--Social aspects--Japan--Case studies. 2. Racially mixed
children--Japan--Ethnic identity. 3. Language and culture--Japan--Case studies.
I. Title.
HM753.K34 2009
305.235’208905052–dc22 2009033792
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-233-7 (hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-232-0 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters
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Copyright © 2010 Laurel D. Kamada.
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Contents
List of Tables and Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Transcription Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
1 Constructing Hybrid Identity in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Importance and Timeliness of the Study of
Hybrid Identity in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
An Emerging Hybrid Identity in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Participants and the Research Site of Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Central Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Structure of this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Examining Discourses of ‘Otherness’ in Japan within a
Multiperspective Discourse Analysis Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Introduction: Ethnicity, Ethnicism and Racialization . . . . . . . . . 16
From Structuralism to Poststructuralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A Multiperspective Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Commonalities of FPDA and DP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Discourses and Repertoires of Ethnicity in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
A ‘Discourse of Homogeneity’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A ‘Discourse of Conformity’ and Enactment
of Japaneseness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A ‘Discourse of Gaijin Otherness’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The ‘Momotarou Paradigm’: The Oni (Beast) as
Foreign ‘Other’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
A ‘Discourse of Interculturalism’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
‘Doing Gender’, ‘Doing Difference’ and
Ethno-Gendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
v
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vi Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls
The Social Construction of Gaijin in Japan Today . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3 The Participants and the Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Research Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
The English-Speaking Foreign Community in
Morita, Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The Six Participants: Families and Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Data Collection: Recorded Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Translation, Categorization and Analysis of the Data . . . . . . . . 68
The Six Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
The Unevenness of the Data Collected and Selected . . . . . . . . . 74
Other Collected Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Research Ethics: Adolescents, their Parents and Privacy . . . . . . 76
Refl exivity: The Analyst Appearing in the Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Negotiating Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Introduction: Negotiating ‘Othered’ Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Isolation, Bullying and Being Left Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Constructing and Deconstructing Othering and
Otherness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Hamideru: Avoiding Being ‘The Nail that Sticks Out’ . . . . . . . . . 101
Negotiating Identities and Change over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5 Claiming Good Difference; Rejecting Bad Difference . . . . . . . . 120
Introduction: Good Difference; Bad Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Deconstructing ‘Othering’ and Privileging Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
There is No Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Constituting Difference and Privileging Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Categorizing Ethnic Selves: Multimemberships . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Differences between the Girls: Unevenness of the Data . . . . . . . 142
Changes over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6 Celebration of Cultural, Symbolic, Linguistic and
Social Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Discursive Construction of Cultural, Symbolic, Linguistic and
Social Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
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Contents vii
Linguistic Capital of Bilingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Capital Resources of English Language Literacy and
Possession of English Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Mixed-Ethnic Girl Friendships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Intercultural Savvy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Access to Choice and Job Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Femininity and Feminism Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7 Discursive ‘Embodied’ Identities of Ethnicity and Gender . . . 181
Introduction: Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . 181
The Dilemma of Ethnically Embodied Adolescent Girls . . . . . 182
Contesting Ethnic Embodiment as Inferior or ‘Othered’ . . . . . 185
Celebrating Ethnic Embodiment as Privileged
Cultural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Yearning to be Embodied Like Another: The
Idealized Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Adolescent Girls’ Changing Bodies: Performing Embodiment
and ‘Fun’ Femininity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8 Discursive Construction of Hybrid Identity in Japan:
Where has it Taken Us? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Limitations and Refl exivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Where this Study has Taken Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Other Hybrid Ethnicities in Japan: Extending the
Research Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Implications for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Final Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Appendix 1: Transcript of Rina’s Think Aloud Protocol
(Uncorrected) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Appendix 2: Descriptions of Materials Used for Discussion . . . . . . 230
Appendix 3: Self-Portraits (in Alphabetical Order) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Glossary of Japanese Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
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List of Tables and Figures
Tables
2.1 Dominant discourses of ethnicity in Japan and examples
manifested in speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Alternative discourses of ethnicity in Japan and examples
manifested in speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3 Ethno-gendered discourses of embodiment in Japan and
examples manifested in speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Details about the participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2 Meetings with the participants spanning four grades of
school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figures
2.1 Patorouru Horikoshi (Horikoshi Patrol) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2 Police report with illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.3 Romanized Japanese transcript of ‘Horikoshi Patrol’ . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4 English translation: Transcript of ‘Horikoshi Patrol’ . . . . . . . . . . 48
ix
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