Investigating the untapped potential of disagreements

In this chapter, we discuss how disagreement in environmental management is often concealed and left un-investigated due to conversation procedures as well as through discursive framing. Disagreement is indeed a resource in environmental problem solving and necessary for democracy and creativity. To unleash this constructive potential, the disagreement needs to be articulated in conversations. This investigation of differences is, however, often hampered by consensus-oriented conversation norms and by discourse constructions. Based on empirical examples, we show how the avoidance of disagreement is carried out in practice, and discuss what communicative procedures would be needed for more fruitful investigation of disagreement. We identify two different kinds of processes, which camouflage disagreement: (1) conversational procedures which hide or hamper articulation of disagreement in dialogue and (2) the construction of empty or floating signifiers, which through their floating discursive construction eliminate or hide paradoxes, differences in perspectives, and conflicts. Environmental communication research is often requested by society to develop knowledge on consensus orientation. We suggest that environmental communication as a discipline should be assigned to develop knowledge about facilitation of joint investigation of differences and thereby developing communicative capacity for disagreement.