Hallgren, Lars
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
We investigate how disagreeing is performed in conversations about circular economy futures, and how it is disturbed by discursive norms of hope. Disagreement is recognised as an interactive process essential for knowledge development and democracy. However, conducting democratic investigations of differences becomes difficult when interaction norms prioritise hopeful expressions. Drawing on 11 h of recorded meetings on the circular economy, we analyse how disagreement is interactively performed and link these observations about the constraining effects of 'harmful hope' to ideas of radical democracy and expectations surrounding hopeful environmental communication. We identify four discursive procedures of hope-community, appreciative coordination, concept innovation, and underlying disagreements, and demonstrate how these regulate and limit processes of agreeing and disagreeing, thereby influencing the conditions for constructive disagreement essential for democracy. Ultimately, we demonstrate how conversations about futures become dominated by norms of hope, which come at the expense of communicative capacity to constructively examine disagreements necessary for advancing sustainable transitions. This dynamic is evident even when the desired future involves radical transformations of production and consumption systems, as in the circular economy. Our study offers insights into what and how these discursive structures should be challenged in conversations about sustainability futures.
Keywords
Hope norm; Hope discourse; Discursive closure; Circular economy; Agonistic pluralism; Deliberative democracy; Environmental communication
Published in
Futures
2026, volume: 176, article number: 103750
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD
SLU Authors
Bergeå, Hanna
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Kreber, Daniela
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Political Science (Excluding Peace and Conflict Studies)
Environmental Economics and Management
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103750
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/145597