Paper short abstract

This paper draws upon field research in north India to examine the social actions of educated un/under-employed youth and emergence of a self-styled 'go-between generation' (beech ki pithi).

Paper long abstract

This paper draws upon field research in north India to examine the social actions of educated un/under-employed youth and emergence of a self-styled 'go-between generation' (beech ki pithi). We argue on the basis of field research in rural Uttarakhand that educated un/under-employed youth, especially university graduates, are increasingly involved in explicitly social actions: practices that occur within social spheres, involve intense social networking, and are imagined as self-consciously 'social'. The social is a means to talk about everyday politics in India. Much of this social action involves young people in their twenties acting as intermediaries between parents, who have limited knowledge of rapidly shifting social fields, and children (6-16).