Labourers' letters from Wellington to Surrey, 1840-1845: Lefebvre, Bernstein and pedagogies of appropriation

Abstract

Henri Lefebvre suggested that social researchers engage in 'the concrete analysis of rhythms' in order to reveal the 'pedagogy of appropriation (the appropriation of the body, as of spatial practice)'. Lefebvre's spatial analysis has influenced educational researchers, while the idea of 'pedagogy' has travelled beyond education. This interdisciplinary paper combines Lefebvre's analytical trilogy of perceived, conceived and lived spaces with Bernstein's 'pedagogical device' in an interrogation of historical documents. It engages in a 'rhythm analysis' of the New Zealand Company's 'pedagogical appropriation' of a group of agricultural labourers into its 'systematic colonisation scheme'. The temporal-spatial rhythms of the labourers' lives are accessible in nine surviving letters they wrote in Wellington and sent to Surrey between 1841 and 1844. By revealing how their bodies were 'traversed by rhythms rather as the “ether” is traversed by waves', we gain insight how bodies, space and the self are mutually constitutive and constituted.