The number of foreign people in Japan has increased dramatically in the past years and among them, international mothers are most likely to be disconnected from the local society, mainly due to the “language barrier”, and they tend to have negative self-awareness after arriving in Japan. Traditionally, it has been considered that bilingual support for the lack of their Japanese language ability was necessary, as compensation for the gap. The purpose of this study is to clarify the process of network formation by means of participant observation, centering on the international mothers, which might transform the “support/supported” relation.
From December 2005 to July 2008, the author participated in the activity of the group “Cooking Meeting”, consisting of international mothers, students and local Japanese. This study analyzes the possibility of network formation, where the resource of the international mothers would be re-evaluated, as well as that of the other main participants.
The results show that (1) both international mothers and the other main participants “felt secured” due to the respect for diversity during the activity, (2) they considered themselves as “we”, challenging through “our own way” while preparing food together and therefore gained self-confidence in the activity (=introducing one’s food) and in the tool (=using language) at the same time, (3) the category of “we” was gradually expanded by connecting to more new friends, avoiding “plural monoculturalism” (Sen, 2006) and yet contributing to accumulating “our” “social capital” (Bourdieu, 1979).
Thus an associational activity (=cooking together), where both foreign people and local (Japanese) people are together able to act as the “party involved”, is indispensable to strategically cross the border of language and cultural barriers.
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