Power Practices in Japanese Adolescent Friendship
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Lure of the Intimate: Power Practices in Japanese Adolescent Friendship A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Heather Spector Hallman Committee in charge: Professor Thomas J. Csordas, Chair Professor Suzanne A. Brenner Professor Maria Charles Professor Janis H. Jenkins Professor Steven M. Parish Professor Christena L. Turner 2011 Copyright Heather Spector Hallman, 2011 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Heather Spector Hallman is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2011 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………............ iii Table of Contents………………………………………………….…………….. iv Frequently Used Japanese Terms……………………………………………....... vii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………..... viii Preface…………………………………………………………………………… ix Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………… xi Vita………………………………………………………………………….…… xii Abstract of Dissertation………………………………………………………….. xiii Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 1 Sense, power and intimacy………………………………………………. 5 Power and culture in interaction…………………………….… 8 Intimacy and power……………………………………………. 12 Three examples of power and intimacy in interaction……........ 14 Ethical sociality………………………………………………………….. 18 Self-, other-, and interactive-regard…………………………… 19 Self-regard in Japan………………………………………….… 21 Japanese adolescent-onset psychological distress…………….. 23 Notes to the introduction………………………………………………… 28 Chapter One: Research Setting and Methodologies: Futōkōsei and Kano Academy 34 Kano Academy………………………………………………………..…. 37 Research at Kano………………………………………………………... 45 Long-term absenteeism………………………………………………….. 53 Parents, social class, and futōkōsei…………………………….. 56 iv Discourses on futōkōsei……………………………………...… 63 Futōkōsei and friendship………………………………………. 74 Notes to chapter one…………………………………………………….. 75 Chapter Two: Japanese Friendship Institutions and Friendship at Kano Academy 81 Japanese friendship as a subversive institution……………………..….... 84 Friendship‘s subversive status at Kano……..…………………. 90 Family and friendship…………………………………………………..... 93 Kano students‘ families and friends…….…………………..… 95 Class nakama and friends……..…………………………………………. 98 Kano students‘ nakama and friends…...……………………..… 101 Romantic relationships and friendship……………………..……………. 107 Kano students‘ romantic partners and friends……………..…... 108 Notes to chapter two…………………………………………………….. 109 Chapter Three: Japanese Culture of Friendship and Friendship at Kano Academy 113 Eastern/non-modern friendship………………………………………….. 113 Western/modern friendship…………………………………………….... 117 Japanese culture of friendship and friendship at Kano Academy….……. 121 Gender in Japanese friendship and at Kano……………….…... 122 Age in Japanese friendship and at Kano…………………….... 125 Background similarity in Japanese friendship and at Kano….... 127 Dyadic friends, polyadic friends, best friends, and friendship trajectory at Kano…………………………………………...…. 131 Notes to chapter three……………………………………………………. 133 Chapter Four: Talk and Agonism in Intimacy-Building………………………… 138 Introduction……………………………………………………………… 140 v Talk………………………………………………………………………. 143 Meanings of speaking and talk to Kano students……………… 143 Beckoning, speaking up, and friendship formation………….… 147 Good friends, bad friends, and best friends……………………………… 153 Gender and friend qualities in interviews and on questionnaires 159 Speakers and listeners in talk and enhanced talk………………………... 161 Trust and betrayal……………………………………………………….. 168 Trust and betrayal at Kano Academy…………………………. 174 Enmeshment and friendship………………………….…………………. 179 Notes to chapter four……………………………………………………. 181 Chapter Five: A Sense of Power…………………………………………………. 186 Evolution of a sense of power through childhood………………………. 189 Hankōki …………………………..…………………………… 195 Later adolescence to adulthood……………………………….. 202 A gendered sense of power……………………………………………… 209 Notes to chapter five…………………………………………………….. 215 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………. 221 Appendix One: Kano Faculty Interview Questions……………………………… 224 Appendix Two: Kano Student Interview Questions…………………………….. 228 Appendix Three: Friendship Questionnaire in Japanese……………………...… 234 Appendix Four: Friendship Questionnaire in English………………………....… 240 References Cited………………………………………………………………… 246 vi FREQUENTLY USED JAPANESE TERMS Amae: dependence Futōkō: long-term absenteeism Futōkōsei: long-term absentee Hankōki: period of rebellion Honne: true intention; genuine, truthful interaction Kejime: distinction Ki: mind/body/spirit Ningen kankei: human relationships Nakama: peer group Tatemae: public intention, superficial interaction Tōkōkyohi: school phobia vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Questionnaire respondents by grade and gender……………………………. 49 Table 2: Students‘ relationship rankings……………………………………………… 97 Table 3: Friend characteristics from questionnaire respondents………….………...... 159 Table 4: Markers of adulthood……………………………………………………….. 207 viii PREFACE I sought a teaching position at Kano Academy because the students were futōkōsei, long-term absentees. This aspect of their personal history was the lure, but soon after I arrived it became apparent that futōkōsei challenges were not a topic students wished to reflect upon as they were seeking to overcome their absentee pasts. Of utmost concern were their emerging and deepening friendships. Dominating their lives from the early morning hours at school to the wee hours of the night—from what I gathered of their texting habits—was the status and quality of their friend relationships. Observing them for over a year and a half, I noticed how being with friends was transformative. Among their closest mates, students glowed with positivity evocative of medetai, interpersonal engagement so overwhelming that self-awareness is lost. They discovered the ease and contentment of an inshin denshin relationship wherein intimacy yields the ability to read another‘s mind. Intimate friendships buttressed students‘ sense of self- worth and students derived strength from the mere presence of intimate others. Moreover, students with friends were attending school and engaged in school life. The experience of friendship intimacy affected students‘ self-regard, other-regard, and interactive-regard, but how? The following thesis is a response to this question. I argue that through the experience of adolescent friendship, Kano students honed a healthful sense of power that inflected self-, other-, and interactive-regard. I link this sense of power to practices of ethical sociality to argue more generally that Japanese adolescent friendship is crucial for the development of a healthy sense of power, individual well-being, and interdependent sociality. Moreover, friendship promotes normative gender identities and identification with adult personhood. ix In the introductory chapter, I explore themes that I reference in describing and analyzing data from fieldwork at Kano Academy: sense, power, intimacy, ethical sociality, and regard. In the first chapter, I present Kano Academy, the ―problem‖ of futōkōsei, and the peer-relationship challenges particular to this group. I also detail the methods used to study Kano students‘ friendships. In chapters two and three, I reference anthropological literature on friendship to develop the framework that I use to present friendship institutions in Japan and at Kano. After establishing the field of friend relations and demonstrating that Kano friendships are representative of the norm, in chapter four I detail how students generated intimacy through practices of talk and enhanced talk. In the first part of chapter five, I explore the evolution of a sense of power over the course of childhood and into early adulthood, and locate its intersection with friendship. In the second part, I consider how a sense of power is gendered and how this sense articulates with gender participation in the workforce. In the concluding chapter, I discuss the importance of friendship to the aims of Kano Academy and to the performance of Japanese sociality. x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I greatly appreciate my doctoral committee, Tom Csordas, Suzanne Brenner, Maria Charles, Janis Jenkins, Steve Parish, and Christena Turner for their support over the course of my graduate studies. I especially thank Suzanne Brenner and Christena Turner for assisting in the job application process over the past year. I am greatly indebted to my chair, Tom Csordas, for his advice, encouragement, and feedback on the thesis, and for his support in the job application process. I have been fortunate to work on the project, Southwest Youth and the Experience of Psychiatric Treatment, since April 2008. I am grateful to the leadership of Tom Csordas and Janis Jenkins in creating an opportunity for me to develop diverse research skills. The fieldwork for this thesis was funded by a fellowship from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, and from the Naiman Fellowship from the Department of Japanese Studies at UCSD. I am grateful for their enthusiasm