Peer-reviewed article
Youth’s everyday environmental citizenship: An analytical framework for studying interpretive agency
Türkan Fırıncı Orman ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This is a theoretical paper proposing an analytical framework for understanding how young people engage with environmental citizenship and climate change. Rather than focusing on formal political participation, the author suggests that youth express agency through everyday activism and green lifestyle choices, operating from positions as 'victims', 'voters', 'rejecters', and 'interpreters'. The paper does not evaluate outcomes or interventions for child well-being.
Key points
- Youth environmental engagement is better understood through everyday lived experiences rather than formal political structures
- Young people adopt four distinct positionings in relation to climate and environmental issues
- Interpretive agency is expressed through everyday activism and green lifestyle practices
- Youth challenge adult-led conceptualisations of environmental ideologies
- Framework builds on performative understanding of citizenship
Limitations
This is a theoretical framework paper with no empirical data, intervention testing, or measurable outcomes for child well-being. It cannot demonstrate what works to improve children's lives or environmental outcomes.
Abstract
When youth agency and climate change are understood in the context of Politics, they do not reflect young people’s everyday realities and their youthful engagement with climate change. Building on the performative understanding of citizenship, in this theoretical piece, I suggest a broader framing of youthful political agency and participation in the context of climate change and consumerism by referring to four basic lived political positionings: ‘victim’, ‘voter’, ‘rejecter’ and ‘interpreter’. I further argue that young people perform their interpretive agency by adopting everyday activism and green lifestyles while challenging adult-led conceptualisations of environmental ideologies.