A Conjunctural Cultural Studies Approach to the Millennial

This chapter explores how the terms ‘generation’ and ‘Millennial’ have circulated in mediatized political and popular discourse from think tanks to amplified voices such as Mark Zuckerberg’s. The argument is twofold. One, the crisis created by the 2008 financial crash produced multiple locations for the identification of generational phenomena. Second, the concept of generation can be used to explain a sociological category as well as being an ideological tool or discursive formation. These points are argued using a conjunctural analysis from the Cultural Studies tradition as well as Karl Mannheim’s concept of ‘generation units’. The chapter focuses on the multiple generational discourses that circulated after 2008, including the Resolution Foundation’s reworking of the generational social contract, entrepreneurial ideologies located in digital cultures, as well as books that forge a contested generational identity which interrogates the Millennial as a social type.