This study aims to examine the loss of farmers’ places in connection with the reality in the time of industrialization described in 『Agricultural Affairs』 of SHIN Gyeongrim. In 1970’s, the industrialization led by the government resulted in a great change in the economic system from agriculture to manufacturing industry. In the process, a number of farmers left farm villages,their own hometown, and headed for a city. 『Agricultural Affairs』 of SHIN Gyeongrim reflects the actual circumstances of the farmers and agricultural areas in time.
A person’s hometown symbolizes the mental root, not merely a physical environment. An agricultural area in the time of industrialization started to lose its foundation, and it lost the identity as a comfortable hometown.
Farmers who were still living in a farmland lost the unity with the hometown, and yearned ‘Seoul’ out of a sense of defeat. However, the discord with hometown, the closest place, resulted in the loss of identity of human.
Farmers started to be gathered at construction sites in 'Seoul' and nearby cities to find a job. The places where they found a new house were just instant and incidental. They could not become a genuine ‘home’ to continually keep their life in. Their living in a place away from home was mainly due to industrialization led by the government. Industrialization made people leave the birthplace and move out for skills and jobs. Such population mobility prevents people from settling in a certain place away from home as the second hometown, and makes them move continually. In the end, industrialization, the governing power so to speak, caused ‘No Place.’No place indicates a potential attitude that does not admit an environment or a place with no meaning. In other words, farmers were flooded away from a meaningful place to a meaningless ‘no place’ due to industrialization.
They lost a ‘house’ that bears the genuine sense of place and went through self-alienation.