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ID: 193609

Rewriting the hills: Youth sociality as a mode of navigating unemployment in a context of outmigration in North India / Deuchar, Andrew

Deuchar, Andrew	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

This article examines the ways in which educated yet unemployed young people attempt to configure ways of being productive in a small hill town in North India. Young people who do not migrate to large urban centres from this township are the subject of contradictory discourses: in some moments they are seen as an antidote to the ‘problem of migration’, but in other moments they are ridiculed for not making good use of their time. Both discourses suggest a present wherein young people are not productive. Drawing on ethnographic material gathered over a ten-month period, this article frames youth sociality as a mode registering a sense of productivity and navigating unemployment. I argue that while hanging out at a computer shop, young men were distancing themselves from notions of idling and creating masculine youth cultures in which they sought to situate themselves as productive young people. I make this argument by unpacking exchanges between these young men and by analysing the tangible ways they helped the shop function. I also draw debates about youth sociality into dialogue with theoretical insights from rural geography to illuminate how educated youth attempt to imbue rural and peri-urban space with new possibilities. I show how educated youth attempt to reanimate rural space and forge affirmative rural futures by emphasizing their connections with Indian modernity. Attending to the ways in which educated yet unemployed youth attempt to situate themselves within productive relations is set to become of increasing importance given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key Words

Migration ; Education ; India ; Youth ; Unemployment

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ID: 143318

Young men, education and ethnicity in contemporary Darjeeling / Scrase, Timothy J; Ganguly-Scrase, Ruchira ; Deuchar, Andrew

Scrase, Timothy J	Article
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Summary/Abstract

Utilising qualitative research methods and drawing upon theories of social reproduction, this article examines how ethnicity intersects with students’ experiences of education in Darjeeling. The research explores how young men’s aspirations articulate their ethnic identity and their associated political demands. It shows how ethnicities are fostered within friendship groups on college campuses and also discusses young men’s criticisms of the Gorkhaland movement, offering a nuanced and textured account of ethnic struggles in this area. It is shown that young men draw upon education to develop ethnic identities that bridge caste divides and conceal class inequalities. The research sheds new light on how ethnicities are constructed amid the tensions of globalisation and regionalism, education and development.

Key Words

Ethnicity ; Education ; India ; Identity ; Neoliberalism ; Class ;
Darjeeling ; Gorkhaland ; Nepali Youth

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