"We Are the Present, Not Just the Future": Teenage Girl Activists' Discourses of Political Agency.

One of the key features of social movements is that they are spaces in which ordinary people claim political and social authority, or the right to "make history." Movements and activists therefore have to construct themselves as legitimate actors with political, social or cultural rights to participation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation with teenage girl activists in five cities in the Americas, this paper explores the discursive resources that these young women call upon as they struggle to define themselves as valid and valuable contributors to social movements and social change in the context of significant exclusion and tokenization. The central discursive threads addressed include ideas of democracy, equality, difference and generational responsibility. Teenage girl activists, in emphasizing their roles as history-makers and agents of social change, are re-defining girlhood and youth. Focusing on how these girls infuse their identities with political authority, this paper sheds light on a significant part of the process of collective identity formation within social movements. It also suggests several important lessons for adult activists and the future of contemporary social movements, encouraging increased attention to the dynamics of age-based inclusion and exclusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]