Research on farmers has predominately focused on how they think through the mind, i.e., their reflexivity regarding farming practices and values, as well as their cultural and symbolic representations of farming. While this literature offers valuable insights, it builds on an underlying mind/body duality. Based on qualitative interviews with 25 rice farmers in Japan, this paper focuses on the body of farmers, in terms of how bodily senses shape how farmers make sense of their farming practices. We show that the body, as the site of interaction with matter, shapes the farmers’ ability to be affected by rice plants. By honing their senses, the farmers learn to make differences and to perceive new possibilities, engaging in a reciprocal process of becoming-with the rice. This ability to develop sensuous engagements may contribute to farmers developing production practices that are in harmony with the local agro-ecosystem and more generally enable new imaginations, strengthening the possibility that things could be otherwise.

Focusing on the Echigo‐Tsumari Art Festival (ETAF) in Niigata, Japan, we propose a novel conceptualisation of the role of art in rural revitalisation, focused on how local farmers experience art as a catalyst for social, cultural and natural change. Scholarship on the role of art in rural revitalisation has often focussed on arts’ problem‐solving affordances (e.g., economic, demographic) or on how rural engagements matter to art development. Instead, we turn our attention to the middle‐ground: how art intervenes in the everyday life and practices of farmers in the festival area. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, our analysis draws on the theories of Tsurumi Shunsuke and John Dewey to offer a broad and inclusive notion of ‘art’ and ‘aesthetic experience’. With this framework, we explore how farmers relate to different artworks presented at ETAF and how art can spur farmers to reflect on their lives, their farming and the environments they inhabit.

As a traditional and dominant practice of qualitative research, interviewing is heavily dependent on meanings constructed by language. In a cross-cultural setting, the challenge of adequately capturing what interviewees want to convey is well acknowledged by researchers. Indeed, meanings are not only tied to linguistic meanings but also to cultural practices. Moreover, when the focus of one’s research is to understand the mindsets and practices of farmers, focusing solely on spoken words may also hide the fact that farmers also engage with plants, soil and nature through emotions and feelings. In this chapter I will reflect on my personal experiences as a non-Japanese Asian researcher working with an interpreter during my field work in Japan. In the interviews I conducted with farmers, I used photographs of local artwork to elicit information to understand what relationships they may build between the artworks and their farming practices. I used photo elicitation to supplement the limitations of language in making sense of meanings tied to farming practices. Also, to convey results to a western audience, I explore the use of visual illustrations to complement verbal quotes to more fully convey the meaning of the quotes. Two main observations emerged from this cross-cultural experience: first, the gap between language and cultural meaning can provide valuable opportunities for researchers to experiment with different methods, that broaden our sensibilities beyond rational reasoning in data collection; second, using photography in interviews can unfold different layers of realities than talk-only interviews. I argue that visual methods can take us beyond language and open up a more diverse picture to understand the practices of farmers. It is therefore important for cross-cultural researchers to be reflexive about the limitations of language, transform these challenges to an opportunity to remake method and open up different layers of understanding.