Paper short abstract:

The paper challenges epistemological distinctions between representational and phenomenological approaches to landscape by demonstrating the means by which farmers in North Yorkshire, UK translate their lived experiences into forms of political representation.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic research among hill farmers in North Yorkshire, UK I explore the negotiated interactions of personhood, power and politics through the lens of rhetoric culture theory. The paper seeks to challenge opposing theorisations of land and landscape as either fixed political representation on the one hand, or as phenomenological and experiential on the other. Phenomenology now dominates contemporary ethnographic approaches to landscape and provides rich evidence of the dynamic, nuanced, relational and experiential associations between people and the land. They have more often than not failed, however, to link this deeper, more engaged level of understanding with political interpretations and analyses. The paper addresses this distinction by demonstrating how those living in close quarters with the land (farmers) translate their lived experience into political representation: how experience motivates political action; how it furnishes farmers with the skills to act politically, and; how it grants farmers with legitimacy in the eyes of others. The case material provides examples of how farmers use symbolism and narrative to stake their political claims in the context of contestations with policy-makers and other stakeholders over the interpretation of appropriate farming practices. The paper shows how, contrary to much of the literature, farmers can and do aesthetically fix the landscape for rhetorical effect, and how narrative as a form of rhetorical representation always already serves to politicise time.