Transcending Self and Other Through Akogare [Desire]

The English Language and the Internationalization of Higher Education in Japan

By (author) Chisato Nonaka

Publication date:

26 September 2018

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788921701

The Japanese concept of akogare has become well known in TESOL-related literature in recent years, usually in the context of interracial sexual desire. In this far-reaching new study of the internationalization of Japanese Higher Education, Chisato Nonaka uses akogare as both an analytical lens and the object of enquiry, and ultimately reconceptualises it as the creation of a space where individuals negotiate and transcend their ethnic, national, racial, gender or linguistic identities. The book innovatively engages with the often controversial binary of Japanese/non-Japanese, and demonstrates how Japan (often thought of as a homogenous nation) may be at a critical crossroads where long-held assumptions about a singular ‘Japanese identity’ no longer hold true. The book has profound implications for how ‘internationalization’ can mean more than just the use of English.

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Foreword

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Akogare and My Study Participants

Chapter 3. Akogare in Academic Literature and the Akogare Theoretical Framework

Chapter 4. Methodology

Chapter 5. Akogare and Gender

Chapter 6. Akogare and Precarious “Japan”

Chapter 7. Akogare and Japanese Higher Education Today

Chapter 8. Conclusion and Future Implications

Appendix

References

A multifaceted portrayal of language learner motivation and identity in Japanese higher education, this book provides a wide-angle lens on gender, ethnicity, self and other in the age of internationalization via the Japanese concept of akogare as a transcultural phenomenon. It is a must-read not only for ELT professionals in Japan but for anyone interested in the (re)appropriation of otherness in the construction of multilingual selves among contemporary language learners.