This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the weekly intercultural sessions held at an alternative community space known as 'Mita no Ie'. W suggest from an anthropological viewpoint that Mita no Ie, because of its marginality, functions to illuminate the 'structures' and 'cultures' of the mainstream university institution, and to challenge its boundaries. We begin by providing an explanation of our conceptual framework which relies on Turner's notion of liminoid. We then give an account of our methodology, followed by an ethnographic description of a typical session. Finally, we analytically situate our ethnography in relation to the larger institutional and social context. We focus in particular on the transgression of professional hierarchies, boundaries of faculties/ campuses, as well as ethnicity and languages that characterize the intercultural sessions in Mita no Ie and point to the contrast between the formal knowledge-based learning of the university context and the experiential, performative nature of learning in the context of the Mita no Ie intercultural sessions.

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