The Semiotic Field of the Garden

Personal Culture and Collective Culture

Edited by:
Teppei Tsuchimoto, Chukyo University

A volume in the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development. Editor(s): Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University.

Published 2024

This book is not only a direct study of gardens, but also an exploration of the relationship between personal and collective culture, an important component of cultural psychology. This perspective leads to the strange but fascinating question: "How does gardening relate to human development?"

Exploring the meaning of “garden” for a human being offers profound insights on the relationship between personal and collective culture. In the process of constructing of a garden, nature becomes the object, on which various liminal, aesthetic, and symbolic activities are directly performed. The term “garden” encompasses a multitude of meanings. It is a place for recreation as well as a symbol of social status and prosperity. For the gardener, it is a place of work. Feelings aroused by a garden are deeply rooted in people’s hearts and have an aesthetic significance. Throughout the book, readers will be awakened to how deeply the garden is connected to the human psyche.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural psychology, as well as to anyone interested in the relationship between people and gardens (gardeners, architects, artists, farmers). Readers are encouraged to look back at their own experiences to deepen their understanding of personal and collective culture. Imagine the garden you are familiar with, be it a home garden, neighborhood park, cemetery, or schoolyard. You may find that facets of your experiences are reflected in the colorful and diverse gardens featured in this book.

CONTENTS
Series Editors Preface—Cultivating Gardens: Dialogues Within the Self, Jaan Valsiner. Editorial Introduction—Expanding the Concept of the Garden: From Japanese Zen Gardens to Human Development, Teppei Tsuchimoto. PART I: GARDENS WITH HUMAN LIFE. The Garden as a Symbolic Space: Trajectories of Affective-Semiotic Cultivation, Daniela Schmitz Wortmeyer. Garden as a Sign of Happiness, Ramon Cerqueira Gomes. Mirrors of a Garden: Understanding Ecological Units Over Time, Enno Freiherr von Fircks and Marc Antoine Campill. “I Need a Garden,” a Survivor Said: A Garden as a Place Where Survivors Become Relational Beings for Disaster Recovery, Ryohei Miyamae. Radioactive Waste Publicly Placed in a Space That Used to be a Yard as a Private Place: Time and Sign in the Designated Evacuation Areas After Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident, Tomoo Hidaka and Hideaki Kasuga. Commentary Part IA—Multilayered and Complex Issue of Garden, Eemeli Hakoköngäs. Commentary Part IB—Commentary to the Garden: A Place to Cultivate in Pain and Comfort, Marc Antoine Campill. PART II: GARDEN METAPHOR: EXPLORING PERSONAL <> COLLECTIVE CULTURE. From God’s Garden to Garden of Memories: Personal and Collective Cultures in a Northern Finland Cemetery, Eemeli Hakoköngäs. The Humanistic Garden of the Renaissance: Where Human, Society and Cosmos Meet: An Introduction to Machiavelli's Political Ideas. Line Joranger. Constant Fear of Ostracism, Miho Zlazli. Djinns and Radioactive Materials: An Abductive Autoethnography on a Garden of Invisible Entities, Yusuke Katsura. The Transition of a Beginning Nursery Teacher’s Interaction With Children From a “Garden” Perspective, Kiyoshi Hamana. Commentary Part IIA—Garden as an Expression of Human Life, Ramon Cerqueira Gomes. Commentary Part IIB—Enriching the Semiotic Field of the Garden Through Metaphors, Enno von Fircks. PART III: MOVING THROUGH GARDENS: A JOURNEY TO SELF-CULTIVATION. Cultivation in Self and Environment: When a Voice Echoes From One Garden to Another, Marc Antoine Campill. Moving Through Racial Gardens: Personal and Collective Dimensions of Racial Becoming: A Transcultural Autoethnographic Account, Márcio de Abreu. Life in a Different Soil: My Existential Mobility as an Immigrant, Rennan Okawa. Chinese-Born Korean People’s Experience and Present-Day Japan: Using TEA, Akiko Ichikawa. “Qualia” of Transgender Experiences: What Visual Images Tells Us, Naoto Machida. Commentary Part IIIA—Self-Cultivation: The Process of Finding Space for Oneself and Others, Line Joranger. Commentary Part IIIB—The Garden as a Metaphor for Cultivation of the Self and the Other, Daniela Schmitz Wortmeyer. PART IV: THE “GARDEN PROJECT” The “Garden Project”: Initiating International Cultural Exchange Through Gardens, Teppei Tsuchimoto, Yuki Saito, Misato Furuse, and Tatsuya Sato. The Inner Sanctum as a “Garden of Buddha” and the People Who “Take Care” of It: How the Priest’s Eldest Son Discovered the “Garden”, Gishin Tsukuba. Analysis of Personal Culture Appearing in the Japanese Garden, Megumi Nishikawa. Personal Feeling Toward Three Gardens in My Life: Example of the Yu Garden, Xiaoxue Chen. Garden as Infinity, Fumiyuki Taka. Commentary Part IV—Reflecting on Oneself and Garden: Projecting Happy Memories Into the Future, Tatsuya Sato. Epilogue—Living With Gardening, Living as Gardening, Teppei Tsuchimoto.