The ASPIRE Centre is delighted to congratulate Drs Jude Ball and Lindsay Robertson, both of whom have received a prestigious Royal Society Marsden Fast Start grant in the 2020 funding round.
Jude’s research will contribute to international efforts to understand why substance use has declined in adolescents. She will investigate the possible contribution of the changing function(s) and meaning(s) of substance use in adolescents’ lives and explore whether other practices (e.g. social media, gaming) are fulfilling the functions that smoking, drinking and drug use once did, such as projecting a ‘cool’ identity or bonding with friends. She will compare archival interview data collected 20 years ago (when adolescent substance use was at its peak) with contemporary interview data collected for this study.
Lindsay will shine a light on tobacco companies’ efforts to reframe themselves as stakeholders pursuing public health goals. She will develop a detailed case study of tobacco industry ‘transformation’ and political influence in New Zealand, examine whether and how industry rhetoric permeated stakeholders’ discourse, and extend conceptual frameworks of corporate power.
Warm congratulations to Lindsay and Jude on their success.