Desired or contested futures? Competing discourse-coalitions for sustainable aviation in Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT The future of aviation is a growing subject of debate, with different actors promoting diverse discourses on climate mitigation and sustainability. We employ argumentative discourse analysis to explore competing discourses around the future of aviation in Sweden, focusing empirically on the aviation industry and the flight-free movement. Drawing on thirty interviews, one workshop, and forty-three documents, we show how these actor groups represent two discourse-coalitions that articulate opposing discourses on the future of aviation: ‘Green flying’ and ‘Staying on the ground’. Following a logic of (techno)solutionism, Green flying anticipates aviation to maintain a dominant role in society and assures that technological progress will overcome the sector’s climate concerns in the future. Meanwhile, Staying on the ground follows a logic of prefiguration to demonstrate the desirability of an alternative and less aeromobile future, with actors embodying new norms and practices around avoiding flying in the present. The paper contributes to research in critical policy studies by demonstrating how actors with conflicting interests, values, and worldviews imagine and engage with futures differently in their attempts to shape transition pathways and policy-making in the present.