Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the idea of motherhood and the self in its relations is manifested through the interview narratives of American and Japanese women, telling their experiences of child-birth and child-raising.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I describe how the discourse of motherhood is differently constructed through interview narratives by comparing stories told by American women and Japanese women towards the researcher in their respective languages. For the purpose of the study, I analyze video-recorded interview narratives of child-birth and child-raising experiences told by American women residing in Arizona, US and Japanese women residing in Ibaraki, Japan. I particularly focus my analysis on the speaker's stance or position-taking vis-à-vis their ideas of mothers, wives, or women, as well as towards the interlocutor (= the interviewer) and the interactional context that is created within the here and now of the communal grounds. I look into assessment strategies, voices performed through reported speech, and the use of laughter, to see how the speaker position herself vis-à-vis the voices of others, such as other family members or authorities. In conclusion, I show how these two groups of women take on the stances towards the interview narrative, which will consequently demonstrate how social roles and identities are performed on an interactional level. Through the presentation, I hope to demonstrate how narratives are oriented towards the contextual and situational manifestations of different selves and identities, and how narratives are indeed imbedded within culture.

Paper short abstract:

The goal of this paper is to illustrate some of the ways people living abroad recreate and maintain their national identities under the new environment with the use of various communication resources. This will be achieved by drawing on case study of Japanese women living in London.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate some of the ways people who live geographically apart from their home country represent and recreate their bonding with their home country, and maintain their national identities in the new community. Specifically, this study focuses on Japanese women who married British and are permanent residents in London.

The analysis of video-recorded interview narratives, taken after the Great East Japan Earthquake, shows the construction of the interviewees' strong affirmation that the participants (interviewer and interviewee/s) of the interview shared a common experience of the earthquake as a Japanese despite not suffering directly from it in a physical sense. The use of various communication resources and strategies, such as particles, adverbs, laughter, gestures, and hypothetical scenarios of small stories, within the narratives functioned to create a sense of identification with the earthquake. As one example, within the narrative they tried to shift the focus from the geographical separation between Japan and the UK by emphasizing the geographical boundaries between the areas seriously damaged by the earthquake and others. By doing this, the interviewees successfully minimised the various differences between interviewer (who lived 200km apart from the serious damaged areas) and interviewee/s in order to create a bonding with each other as Japanese by creating inter-subjectivity through the earthquake talk in their positioning level of 'here and now.' In the presentation, such examples showing 'bonding' from actual data will be illustrated.

Paper short abstract:

This study analyzes the interview narrative of the Japanese female famers in a farming community and illustrates how the participants from different background attempted to construct bonding.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate how an interviewer and an interviewee in different generations and occupational backgrounds negotiated their different perspectives on childcare. I have conducted a series of participant observation in the agricultural community since 2005. The agriculture in Japan has continued to diminish in importance in the national economy ever since the rapid economic growth of the 1960's. The women in the farming community have been placed in a minority position within the prevailing socioeconomic powers structure, and their voices have been rarely investigated in Japanese academia. This study observes their voices, and illustrates their perspectives toward childcare experiences. Since 2007 interviews have been held with a total of women who have or had been primarily or secondarily engaged in agriculture (e.g. rice, vegetable and fruit farming, livestock), and have or had experienced childbirth and childcare in the community. The situation, in which the interviewer from academia belonged to young generation and the interviewees with farming jobs were in senior generation in a farming community, generated various misconceptions and conflicts on childbirth and childcare in the interviews. This study finds the way how the interviewer and interviewees attempted to lessen the gaps and construct bonding beyond the misconceptions. It must contribute to solve actual generational conflicts in the farming community.

Paper short abstract:

The goal of this paper is to investigate Skype interactions between Japanese families in the US and in Japan. I show how this emerging communication technology creates a context for Japanese families to create, express, and manage family “bonds” and maintain their relationships.

Paper long abstract:

As communication technologies become more common, interactions are no longer situated in a single location, but mediated across multiple spaces. The goal of this paper is to focus on one of such mediated interaction spaces at home and discuss how family "bonds" are created and maintained across geographic boundaries. Specifically I analyze webcam interactions (such as Skype video conversations) between Japanese families in the United States and their extended family members in Japan in order to show how this emerging communication technology, which permits the temporary juxtaposition of physically distant spaces, creates a context for Japanese families to create, express, and manage family "bonds" and maintain their relationships.

The analysis of video-recorded webcam interactions merges interaction- and discourse analysis-based methods in order to illustrate how different types of interactional resources enable families to manage cultural and family practices. For example, filial responsibilities are traditionally realized by children co-residing with, or physically being close to, elder parents in order to be able to provide daily care. Far-flung children in the United States apparently cannot fulfill their filial obligations because of the distance; instead, they attempt to 'take care' of their parents' media environments. By giving webcam instructions for fixing computer problems and by remotely maneuvering elder parents' computers, far-away children are assuming responsibility for creating and maintaining a communicative environment among family members located in distant places. Such interactional practices suggest how from afar, adult children manage intra- and inter-generational relationships and how the bonding of Japanese family is illustrated.