Community and sustainability: towards a discursive approach (original) (raw)

2013

Abstract

This paper outlines a method for engaging with community and sustainability, not as fixed categories, but as subject to on going re-invention and change. It draws on narrative policy analysis and positioning theory, highlighting the storied nature of sustainability discourse. It argues that storylines are continuously negotiated through discourse where meanings can change through the emergence of new storylines that reorder understandings. Dominant storylines are, however, often so powerful that they are difficult to disrupt or to challenge, and so they take the place of evidence and proof 'because their tightly storied characterizations, metaphors, and emplotments continue to underwrite and stabilize assumptions for decision-making' (Bridgeman and Barry 2002, p. 142). The paper demonstrates how dominant discourses about sustainability structure limits the way in which the concept can be spoken and written about, highlighting in particular how the use of generalized language...

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