Paper short abstract:

In this paper I show that by avoiding the objectifying approach to the Japanese furusato, based on the invention of traditions, inspiring moral values can be found in the way people actually live their sentient lives in their rural communities - for them, their furusato is not an 'invention'.

Paper long abstract:

The landscape and the places we inhabit play an important role in human consciousness and relations, being more than a simple physical substrate where Humans apply their reason. Japanese society presents us with a rich landscape culture where we can look for new ways to think about the relation between humans and their landscapes. Concepts like furusato, genfūkei, or satoyama, with their strong nostalgic and/or symbolic content, show us, heuristically, the importance of rural landscape in Japan. In the past, these concepts were explored by several authors in the social sciences through the lens of the 'invention of traditions', by stressing the use, by the government, of those concepts to inspire nationalistic and nostalgic feelings in the people (Robertson 1988; Ben-Ari 1992). Without denying this approach, but avoiding it, this paper will take the sole existence of these notions as a trigger for an honest intercultural dialogue with a Japanese rural community, on the themes of landscape, the human being as a landscape inhabitant and their continuous and mutual relationship.

To support both my ethical and ethnographic position in this matter, I will draw inspiration both from Nigel Thrift's 'non-representational theory' (1996; 2008) and Tim Ingold's 'education by attention' (2002; 2014) and (i) avoid a dualistic and representative approach that treats landscape as an independent object of analysis; (ii) engage in a moral understanding of the lives of those who inhabit the mentioned community and the ways the landscape manifests itself in their daily life, avoiding purely symbolic, historic or religious considerations.

This approach allowed me to show that by avoiding historical and causal explanations for the strong affection that Japanese people feel for the furusato - while going to the field open to an 'education by attention' - inspiring values, both on human-landscape relations and work ethics, can be found. The truth is that: to think about landscape, we must first turn to human beings and their tasks.