Fostering learning through unlearning institutional boundaries: a ‘team ethnography’ of a liminal intercultural space at a Japanese university

Abstract

This paper is an ethnographic study of weekly intercultural meetings held at an alternative community space run by a large private university in Tokyo, Japan. Through a ‘team ethnography’, the two authors of this paper illuminate ways in which alternative modes of learning were promoted and institutional boundaries were transgressed and unlearned. We argue that this was made possible by its spatial as well as organisational liminality. We begin with an explanation of Turner's notion of ‘liminality’, which provides our conceptual framework. This is followed by a reflexive account of our methodological approach, which leads us to the ethnographic description of our field site and our engagement in the field. We then analytically situate our ethnography in the larger institutional and social context. Our analysis focuses on the transgression and ‘unlearning’ of professional hierarchies, age-related, ethnic and linguistic boundaries that permeate the mainstream Aoba institution as well as how alternative, experiential learning is promoted at this liminal site.

Keywords:

• liminality
• Japan
• university
• intercultural exchange
• team ethnography

Notes

1. The choice of tense in presenting this account is difficult and complex. In principle, our description is set in the past since Azuma House itself no longer exists, but we have employed the ethnographic present to evoke a sense of place and temporality that is particularly important in understanding the nature of our field site. Moreover, the complexity arises because of our positioning as native anthropologists, as well as our continued participation in the social networking services community of Azuma House. Our interactions with the Azuma House community (and thus ‘fieldwork’) never completely ceases.

2. We rely here on Okely's (2012, 37) conceptualisation that ‘unlearning entails confronting what has already been learned, whether enforced or naively absorbed, so that it may later be problematised’.