%0 Journal Article
%T Fresh contact: Youth, migration, and atmospheres in India
%A Jane Dyson
%J Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
%@ 1472-3433
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0263775818816318
%X This paper uses long-term research in an Indian village to develop Karl Mannheim¡¯s notion of each generation¡¯s ¡®fresh contact¡¯ with their inherited social and environmental setting. I examine how a generation of young people re-apprehend their local environment following a period of migration. I argue that young people aged between 25 and 34 who have lived outside their locality re-appraise their village economically and spiritually when they return home. I point to the social nature of this ¡®fresh contact¡¯, its spatial character, and the high degree of reflexivity that young men display in discussing their own agency as a generation ¨C a point that emerged especially clearly in their discussion of the term ¡®mahaul,¡¯ a Hindi word meaning ¡®atmosphere¡¯. The paper contributes to geographical and anthropological work on youth agency by highlighting the utility of notions of fresh contact in specific social conjunctures, such as the migration of a particular cohort. At the same time, it suggests the importance of placing alongside Mannheim¡¯s work an explicit focus on the spatial nature of fresh contact, the sociality that constitutes cohorts as generations, and young people¡¯s reflexive capacity to theorise their generational agency
%K Youth
%K atmosphere
%K India
%K migration
%K ghost
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263775818816318