GIRLHOOD STUDIES. An Interdisciplinary Journal; Monica Shank Lauwo and Claudia Mitchell (Web)

Proposals by: 16.02.2026

Girls, young women, and young non-gender-conforming people are incisive agents of social change around the world. However, these people are often positioned as victims, as being in need of help, and/or at the centre of intersecting crises. Building on the gender-transformative movement’s understanding of girls and young people as catalystsof social change (United Nationshehe Children’s Fund 2021), in this special issue we will foreground girls‘ transformative roles as authors, artists, and change agents. Specifically, we will attend to ways in which girls employ their linguistic, semiotic, artistic, and cultural resources creatively and critically to make sense of their world, interrogate injustices, and author new possibilities.
Building on previous special issues of Girlhood Studies on girls as activists (13.2: 2020, edited by Catherine Vanner and Anuradha Dugal) and African girls as knowers, narrators, and co-researchers (16.1: 2023 edited by Marla L. Jaksch et al.), in this issue the focus will be on girls‘ authorship and cultural production, broadly conceived. Informed by applied linguistics and multiliteracies, we are interested in how girls mobilize diverse languages and languaging practices, artistic forms, media, and cultural knowledges to interrogate their worlds and author new understandings. We plan to investigate ways in which girls engage in multimodal storytelling, drawing, video-making, writing, photography, poetry, zine-making, or any other creative ways to author texts, artistic creations, counter-hegemonic narratives, identities, and alternative futures, and how processes surrounding authorship and audiencing catalyze social change. We welcome a wide range of methodological approaches, with a particular interest in those that intentionally amplify and listen to girls‘ voices. Participatory, creative, and arts-based approaches are especially welcome.
In recent years, the field of girlhood studies has offered rich analyses of girls‘ agency as activists and change-makers, including through participatory arts-based methods oriented around catalyzing gender-transformation and social justice. There has been less attention paid, however, to how girls construct their narratives and artistic productions, and how their linguistic, semiotic, artistic, and cultural decisions have an impact on the transformative processes and outcomes of their creative endeavours. Studies in applied linguistics and literacies offer Continue reading →