James Fisher (KCL) - 2014-15 Students
james.fisher@kcl.ac.uk

The Meanings and Experiences of Agricultural Work in Eighteenth-Century England

An exploration of the meanings of agricultural work in eighteenth-century England. Work is considered as a practice that is at once cultural and material, as an experience mediated through different interpretative frameworks. The broad ambition is to conduct a holistic study of how meanings were both shaping and being shaped by the experience of workers. The research will begin narrowly as a study of the extensive husbandry literature that contain rich accounts of labour practices and thought, before examining the relationship to alternative descriptions of practice and thought, for example in estate records, diaries, political pamphlets, or georgic poetry.