Weed-Walking and Placemaking in Central China’s Hillside Maizefields

Manual weeding is intertwined with walking. This article uses walking ethnography to analyse how elderly villagers’ weeding walks forge placemaking in hillside maizefields in Enshi, central China. Grounded in Feuchtwang’s placemaking theory, weed-walking serves dual functions: long-term embodied routines form implicit spatial centring, while repeated weed-walking symbolically demarcates farmlands and cultural boundaries. Flows of people and supplies further strengthen local place bonds. For elderly residents, hillside maizefields are a crucial homing point woven into their life trajectories.