The Consul and the Beatnik: The Establishment, Youth Culture and the Beginnings of the Hippy Trail (1966-8)

Abstract

This paper analyses the attitudes expressed by consular and embassy officials to a new type of traveller they encountered in the mid-1960s. Their observations are contextualised within wider debates concerning 'youth' in the late 1950s and 1960s. Officials distinguished sharply between 'overlanders' (who could be tolerated or accommodated) and 'beatniks' whose behaviour was characterized as illegal and/or unacceptable. Smoking cannabis was identified as a key marker of beatnik behaviour. Officials' observations are contrasted with four accounts by new travellers from the period. The paper concludes with a proposal for an 'anti-nominian' approach to the study of youth cultures: researchers should be more sensitive to the constructed nature of the labels used to identify the various strands of youth identity.