Lindsay Robinson (middle) with Laura Macdonald (left) and thesis supervisor Fiona Robinson (right)
Congratulations to Lindsay Robinson on successfully defending her thesis. Her dissertation is entitled “Empowering Teenage Girls to Save the Planet? Idealized Girlhood, Green Girl Power, and the ‘Girling of Climate Change’”. Her research has been nominated for a Senate Medal.
“My dissertation interrogates the recent visibility of teenage girls and young women in global climate change politics. Although this visibility is seemingly positive and celebratory – where ‘green girl power’ is imagined as the long-awaited solution to impending climate disaster – my research explores the pernicious underpinnings and implications of what I refer to as the ‘girling of climate change’. These ideas of girlhood reinforce essentialist ideas of femininity and youth, combined with neoliberal capitalist beliefs on girls’ exceptionality and individualism, to tell us that teenage girls, all on their own can and must save the world from the climate crisis. Such beliefs are potentially depoliticizing; this emphasis on the individual and iconic climate girl distracts from an attention to much-needed structural, political, and policy changes, as well as from engaging in collective social movement politics. Yet, these ways of thinking about girls and girlhood are not fixed. Girls are actively challenging how they are seen and valued in global politics. As my dissertation suggests, critical researchers must take time to attentively listen to girls and their experiences within and beyond climate activism. And when we do this, it is clear that girls neither want to be superficially celebrated nor be tasked with saving the world on their own. Rather, girls are asking for help – they are demanding ongoing intergenerational and collective political movements to create more collaborative, relational, and egalitarian futures. ”