Rural Scenery Narrative and Field Experiences

Farmers create rural scenery by farming the land. From their memories of the experience of farming the land, they also create their own particular narratives of that rural scenery. Each such narrative differs not only according to the particular environment of each field, but also according to the personal experiences of the farmer. As the narration is repeated, the rural scenery narrative can become the narrative of everyone in the community and this shared narrative can then influence the behavior of all the members in that rural society. The authors call this a ‘normative scenery narrative’. This chapters explores how normative scenery narratives differ according to the various experiences of farmers in rural fields and does so by documenting a case study of old Otamachi in Akita Prefecture, Japan.