Can-Go Girls: (Re)Making Neoliberal Ideal Girl Subjects through Round-the-World Travel

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dr. Guisela Latorre and Dr. Mary Thomas for providing valuable feedback on the earlier manuscripts of this article.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Nick Couldry distinguishes three different levels where neoliberalism serves as the creation of meaning, including “neoliberalism proper,” “neoliberal doctrine,” and “neoliberalism’s normalization” (5). This article focuses on the level of “neoliberalism’s normalization.”

² Bruce W. Dearstyne defines Web 2.0 as “participatory, collaborative, inclusive, creator-/user-centric, unsettled, and very information-intensive” (25). In general, Web 2.0 refers to Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. Blogs are one important type of Web 2.0 collaborative tools.

³ Similar discussion on the interrelation between youth at-risk discourse and ideal youth personhood in neoliberal society can also be found in Peter Kelly's “The Entrepreneurial Self and ‘Youth At-Risk’: Exploring the Horizons of Identity in the Twenty-First Century” and Marnina Gonick's “Between ‘Girl Power’ and ‘Reviving Ophelia’: Constructing the Neoliberal Girl Subject.”

⁴ The current jobs of the three founders of Lost Girls World are as follows: Amanda Pressner is a managing partner and president of business development at Masthead Media Company. Jennifer Baggett is a supervising producer in Brand Creative at Food Network and Cooking Channel and a regular contributor to TravelChannel.com. Holly Corbett is what she calls “assistant happiness editor” at SELF magazine.

⁵ Their last post on their Facebook fan page titled “The Lost Girls” was in July 2018.

⁶ In her work experience section on her Linkedin webpage, Holly Corbett, one of the three founders, lists two relevant entries about her travel enterprise: (1) co-creator and executive editor for Lost Girls World from 2006 to 2015 and (2) executive editor for The Lost Girls from 2006 to 2015.