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ABSTRACT
This paper examines the educational and livelihood trajectories of mainly upper caste youth in the quickly changing Shanti Valley, Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh. This, against the backdrop of economic liberalisation, and the spread of urbanisation and higher education in India in the last two decades. It shows that while higher education has limited attraction for area youth in terms of work and livelihood, what is really transformational is the metamorphosis of the valley from a space dominated by horticulture and agriculture to a site with expanded tourist arrivals. Youth entry points into tourism appear to follow family trajectories, as young people move away from farming as a sole and primary occupation, via such new non-farm employment. Further, as young people and their families come to engage with tourism, the knowledge for such endeavours comes from numerous sources, with higher education being only one route to such learning. Tourism, and the spread of mediated encounters mean that ‘urbanised’ forms of life and living are increasingly visible as the valley is reconstructed as a hybrid global-local space. However, as the local landscape metamorphoses, there are widespread concerns about ecological futures, raised by youth and their families alike.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Megh Singh for his invaluable assistance with field research for this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Moraji, “Subjects of Development”; Deuchar, “Ambivalence and Optimism”; and Jeffrey, “Generation Nowhere.”
2. Lukose, Ritty, “The Children of Liberalization,” 141. For the purposes of this paper, “postcolonial modernities” refers to a consideration of modern and contemporary sociohistorical contexts in postcolonial countries, without assuming a singular or universal definition of the modern.
3. The name of the Valley has been changed to ensure anonymity of my respondents, while I have retained the geographic indicators for Banjar sub-district and Kullu district to utilise material from the Census 2011 and other government reports.
4. Kumar, “Agrarian Transformation and the new Rurality”; Young and Jeffrey, “Making Ends Meet”; Aslany, Contested Capital: Rural Middle Classes; Sharma, “Changing Agricultural Demography.”
5. Stewart, “Atmospheric Attunements.”
6. Jeffrey and McDowell, “Youth in a Comparative Perspective.”
7. Farrugia, “Towards a Spatialised Youth Sociology.”
8. Jeffrey, “Timepass: Youth, Class, and Time.”
9. Koskimaki, “Youth Futures and a Masculine Ethos”; Deuchar, “All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go” and Jeffrey, “Timepass: Youth, Class, and Time.”
10. Deuchar, “Ambivalence and Optimism.”
11. Ibid.
12. Jeffrey et al., “A Useless Thing!” and “Nectar of the Gods?”
13. Jeffrey, “Generation Nowhere’: Rethinking Youth’.”
14. Deuchar, “The Labouring Practices of Jobless Degree Holders”; Farrugia, “Towards a Spatialised Youth Sociology”; Elias M et al., “Gendered Aspirations and Occupations among Rural Youth.”
15. Farrugia, “The Mobility Imperative for Rural Youth.”
16. Kumar, “Agrarian Transformation and a New Rurality.”
17. Brenner and Schmid, “Planetary Urbanism.” Planetary urbanisation is the suggestion that the urban, the rural, the suburban, “nature” are no longer discrete territories, but all enveloped in networked processes of globalised ‘urbanisation’/capitalisation, and which their residents come to encounter through a variety of ways.
18. Kumar, “Agrarian Transformation and a New Rurality”; Young and Jeffrey, “Making Ends Meet”; Aslany, Contested Capital: Rural Middle Classes; Sharma, “Changing Agricultural Demography.”
19. Kumar, “Agrarian Transformation and a New Rurality”; Jeffrey, Young, and Kumar, “Beyond Improvisation?” Patel, “Changing contours of Sociality.”
20. White, “Agriculture and the Generation Problem.”
21. Jeffrey and McFarlane, “Performing Cosmopolitanism,” 420.
22. Jeffrey, Young, and Kumar, “Beyond improvisation?.”
23. Gardner et al., “Accelerated Tourism Development and its impacts in Kullu-Manali.”
24. Mehra, “What Kind of Urban? A Case Study of Kullu.”
25. Census of India Citation2011, District Census Handbook Kullu Part A, 69.
26. The name of the village is changed to ensure anonymity.
27. Census of India Citation2011, District Census Handbook Kullu Part B, 89.
28. Ibid., 36.
29. Negi, S, “Revisiting Educational Development in Himachal Pradesh,” 90.
30. Mehra, “What Kind of Urban? A Case Study of Kullu.”
31. Vasan, “Timber access in the Indian Himalaya,” 1219.
32. Negi, C, “Changes in Agrarian Structure and Agricultural Development.”
33. Census of India Citation2011, District Census Handbook Kullu Part A, 68
34. Census of India Citation2011, C-8 Appendix Education Level Graduate and Above by Sex for Population Age 15 and Above, Himachal Pradesh.
35. Government Degree College Banjar, Self-Study Report, 11
36. Negi R et al., “Contoured Urbanism.”
37. Kumar, “Agrarian Transformation and a New Rurality”; Jeffrey, Young, and Kumar, “Beyond Improvisation?” Patel, “Changing contours of Sociality.”
38. IGNOU provides degrees via distance learning.
39. An arranged marriage is one in which parents scout for, and choose, a groom or bride for their children, via families, family networks et cetera.
40. Negi R et al., “Contoured Urbanism,” 139.
41. Ibid, 142.
42. Sharma, “The Changing Agricultural Demography of India.”
43. Baker, “The Socio-Ecological Effects of Small Hydropower Development in Himachal Pradesh.”