Rate My Professor Karen Nairn

Emeritus Professor Karen Nairn served for 26 years in Te Kura Ākau Taitoka, the College of Education at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, University of Otago, before retiring. She holds a Master of Arts from the University of Canterbury, a PhD from the University of Waikato, and a Diploma in Teaching. As a former high school geography teacher with a passion for environmental issues, her research has evolved from working with high school students to her most recent Marsden-funded project with activists in their 20s and early 30s, documenting their visions for change in Aotearoa.

Nairn's academic interests include youth-led activism, post-school transitions and young people's identities, neoliberal policies and their impacts on young people, academic writing for publication, gender, sexuality, 'race' and youth cultures, the politics of voice, feminist issues in education, critical theories, qualitative research methods including visual methods, and secondary and tertiary education practices. Her book Fierce Hope: Youth Activism in Aotearoa (Bridget Williams Books) reports Marsden-funded research on what inspires young people to create social change across fronts such as honouring indigenous land rights, zero carbon policies, sexual violence, gender-based harassment, justice concepts, and social inequalities. An earlier Marsden-funded project culminated in Children of Rogernomics: A Neoliberal Generation Leaves School, connecting young people's accounts with New Zealand's neoliberal reforms. She co-edited Space, Place, and Environment in the Geographies of Children and Young People series. Recent peer-reviewed publications include 'Scaffolding collective hope and agency in youth activist groups: “I get hope through action”' (Sociological Review, 2025, with co-authors), 'Diffusion as a colonizing process and the challenges of decolonizing Extinction Rebellion Aotearoa New Zealand' (Social Movement Studies, 2025), 'Looking back: The lasting impact of outdoor education for adolescent girls' (Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning, 2025), and 'Disrupting the Chrononormativity of Geographies of Youth and Generationalism' (Geography Compass, 2024). Nairn delivered a keynote for Education for Climate Justice at the Centre for Education and Racial Equality, University of Edinburgh.