Afetividade, migração e cultura – vivências de jovens cearenses com a cultura japonesa

Abstract

The present thesis emerges based on studies and experiences that demonstrate that Japanese culture and language are present in the city of Fortaleza, either through events like SANA, Tanabata Festival, etc., religious worships, e.g. Tenrikyo, or through language studies (nowadays the city counts on at least six Japanese language courses distributed through public and private institutions). It aims to understand senses and meanings, as well as reframes lived by cearenses non descendents through interactions with Japan and its culture and other means, based on affectivity. To do so, it has as specific objectives: 1. Identify the affective-volitional basis of the research participants when relating to elements of Japanese culture; 2. Establish the relationship between the esteem of the people surveyed and the repercussions of their experiences in Japan; 3. Understand how living with Japanese culture and language affects their affections related to experiences in Japan. Theoretical background on this project is based on Social Psychology through Historical-Cultural and Transactional Environmental Psychology perspective, comprehending the subject in relation to its context, being simultaneously constructor and constructed. The methodology has a qualitative approach, with complementary statistical analysis, based on affective maps. The Affective Maps Generating Instrument has an open part, with a complementary design and questionnaire and closed questions, based on a complementary likert scale, in order to assess the Place Estimation. For the analysis of the corpus, content analysis was used. In all, 16 participants, of both sexes, aged between 19 and 41 years, currently residing in Brazil, or in Japan, responded to the maps. As a result, we observed that, as much as the participants like, identify themselves and feel safe in Japan, they do not feel they belong to the place, due to the fact that they are foreigners, not descendants and their perceptions regarding the openness of the Japanese people towards them, who answered part of our questions. As for the rules and form of social organization, the participants stated, in general, that the organization, education and relationships with places in Japan are factors for them, potencializers, which also answers part of our questions raised. On the other hand, rigidity, distancing from people and not welcoming foreigners proved to be non-enhancers. We conclude that the experiences in Japan were, in general, potentiating in relation to aspects of the environment, places, functioning of cities, but de-potentializing in relation to Japanese and the demarcation of being foreigners/Brazilians, by most of the participants.