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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the figuration of Greta Thunberg as a Vorbild. This will be done by exploring how various notions of “the child” as a trope are used by herself in her performances and in the reception of her as a Vorbild, but also in the attempts to discredit her authority.

Paper long abstract:

“My name is Greta Thunberg. I am sixteen years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations. I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are just children.” This quote is typical for how Greta Thunberg uses the child as her position of enunciation. As “our children” this trope is commonly used in political speech as a way of describing a future to be saved. By turning this trope into as her position of enunciation, Thunberg has encouraged millions of young people to go on strike for the climate.

This paper will discuss Thunberg’s school strike, by drawing on Dorothy Noyes’ concept of the Vorbild as a person “that stands forward to be imitated”. According to Noyes, the exemplarity of a Vorbild is shaped in the interplay between the performer and the audience, between intention and reception. To be imitate-able, such performances have to be expressed in more or less recognizable ways. This also counts for how Thunberg has used “the child” trope.

This paper examines the figuration of Thunberg’s exemplarity. This will be done by exploring the aesthetics and the rhetoric of “the child” in her performances and in the reception of her as a protester. Different notions of “the child” are articulated in this interplay, such as 1) embodied future, 2) affective and unruly, 3) authentic and 4) innocent and vulnerable. These different notions are combined in different ways to ascribe or discredit her authority.