Hanna Bergeå

I wrote my PhD thesis in environmental communication about agricultural extension conversations, which linked my interest for how people approach each other, communicate, negotiate about knowledge and values with my interest for agriculture and biodiversity. Today I primarily do research about dialogue processes and how people make themselves understood (or don’t), try to agree and make decisions about complex issues around our natural resources.

I primarily teach in the master program Environmental Communication and Management and supervise master thesis students on a yearly basis.

I work in the following research projects, which span over a range of contexts, but all are in line with my interest for understanding social interaction and its implication for how we handle natural resources:

Between trust and distrust – Expectations and knowledge coordination in policy production and governance of climate change and biodiversity problems

MISTRA Environmental Communication – reframing communication for sustainability

Communication between hope and ambiguity – coordination in transformation of food systems towards circular economy

The role of communicative capacities in the development of dynamic and legitimate management of mountain resources in Sweden

Beyond idealistic glorifications and categorical rejections – The co-construction of meaning in dialogue practices in natural resource management

Planering av kulturarvsinterpretation - meningsskapande och systemtänkande

Collaboration between research and advisory services for more efficient knowledge development in the green sector

IT-solutions for user friendly IPM-tools in management of leaf spot diseases in cereals (Spot-IT)  

I have a strong engagement for external collaboration, since I am convinced that the complex challenges of our times need to be addressed in the interface between the academy and the surrounding society. In my research projects, I work in close cooperation with the people and organisations that the research is about. Until April 2019 was Vice Dean for external collaboration at the Faculty. This entailed, in addition to being part of the leadership of the Faculty, that I have been encouraging colleagues at SLU to collaborate more with our surrounding society and that I worked to improve the conditions for people to make this collaboration happen. I have contributed to the development of a course in leadership in external collaboration and to the development of a merit portfolio for external collaboration. In the research programme Mistra Environmental Communication we collaborate with around twenty societal actors and I have coordinated our work with the so called think/do tanks where we develop and test ways to make environmental communication. I am one of the SLU experts in "Kunskapsrådet" for Baltic Sea Science Center – a science center focusing on the challenges around the Baltic Sea.

I supervise the following PhD students as co-supervisor:

Rikard Hedling: Communicating trust and distrust, legitimacy and power in the governance of climate change, biodiversity and wildlife management – a discursive perspective, pågående

Emily Montgomerie: The creation of trust and distrust in the governance of climate change, biodiversity and wildlife management – an interactionism perspective, pågående

Therese Åhlvik: The ambiguous nature of hope : How a discourse of hope shapes the communicative conditions for exploring challenges in the circular economy transition, 27 november 2023

Paola Ledo Espinoza: Planning in the context of weak planning institutions and lack of resources for implementation – the case of Sacaba, 15 June 2021

Elvira Caselunghe: Deliberations on Nature. Swedish cases of communication and democracy within nature conservation, 6 December 2018

Christina Lundström: Cognition and Decision-Making in Adoption of Agricultural Decision Support Systems. The case of Precision Agriculture, lic 2016

Måns Norlin: Communicating Visions for Urban Development. A micro-study of a governance process, lic 2014

Graminius, C., & Bergeå, H. 2025. “Bad Environmentalism”: Irony, Bodies, and Spatio-Temporal Complexities in the Environmental Campaign The Legend of Nose Hair. Environmental Communication, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2025.2483282

Bergeå, H. & Hallgren, L. 2024. 25 Investigating the untapped potential of disagreements. In A. Carvalho & T. Peterson (Eds.), Environmental Communication (pp. 501-520). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110789553-025 

Westberg, L., Bergeå, H., & Hallgren, L. 2024. Meaning-making in the practice of collaboration: how implicit normative structures guide collaborative processes around contested natural resource issues. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 67(9), 2035–2054. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2024.2326121

Åhlvik, T., Bergeå, H., Rödl, M. B., & Hallgren, L. 2023. When hope messages become the discursive norm: how repertoires of hope shape communicative capacity in conversations on the circular economy. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 67(9), 2017–2034. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2023.2270144

Hallgren, L., Bergeå, H., Montgomerie, E. & Westberg, L. 2023. “I don’t know if we should have that discussion now”. Negotiating procedural frames in collaborative governance of natural resources. Language and Dialogue, Volume 13, Issue 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00147.hal

Rödl, M.B., Åhlvik, T., Bergeå, H., Hallgren, L. & Böhm, S. 2022. Performing the Circular economy: How an ambiguous discourse is managed and maintained through meetings. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132144

Hallgren, L., Bergeå, H., Nordström Källström H. 2020. Conservation Hero and Climate Villain Binary Identities of Swedish Farmers. In: Handbook of Ecocultural Identity. Routledge. 

Joosse, S., Powell, S., Bergeå, H., Boehm, S., Calderon, C., Caselunghe, E., Fischer, A., Grubbström, A., Hallgren, L., Holmgren, S., Löf, A., Nordström Källström, H., Raitio, K., Senecah, S., Söderlund Kanarp, C., von Essen, E., Westberg, L., Westin, M. 2020. Critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication. Six methodological dilemmas to think with. Environmental Communication. Vol. 14 (6). 10.1080/17524032.2020.1725588

Caselunghe, E., Bergeå, H. & von Essen, E. 2019. Public Spheres for Deliberation on Nature? Democratic Qualities of Visitor Centres in Sweden. Journal of Public Deliberation. Vol. 15 (1).

Hallgren, L., Bergeå, H. & Westberg, L. 2018. Communication Problems When Participants Disagree (or Avoid Disagreeing) in Dialogues in Swedish Natural Resource Management – Challenges to Agonism in Practice, Frontiers in Communication, Vol. 3 (56).

Bergeå, H., Roth, A. Emanuelson, U. & Agenäs, S. 2016. Farmer awareness of cow longevity and implications for decision making at farm level. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Sciences. 10.1080/09064702.2016.1196726. Vol. 66 (1).

Ångman, E., Buijs, A., Arts, I, Bergeå, H.L., Verschoor, G. 2016. Communicating emotions in conflicts over natural resource management in the Netherlands and Sweden: legitimation and delegitimation of communities. In: Peterson, T.R., Bergeå, H.L., Feldpausch-Parker, A.M., Raitio, K. (Eds.) 2016. Environmental Communication and Community: Constructive and destructive dynamics of social transformation. Routledge. Abingdon. 978-1-138-91386-8. pp. 184-203.

Peterson, T.R., Bergeå, H.L., Feldpausch-Parker, A.M., Raitio, K. 2016. Social transformation and sustainability: communication and community construction/ destruction. In In: Peterson, T.R., Bergeå, H.L., Feldpausch-Parker, A.M., Raitio, K. (Eds.) 2016. Environmental Communication and Community: Constructive and destructive dynamics of social transformation. Routledge. Abingdon. pp. 269-275. 978-1-138-91386-8.

Peterson, T.R., Bergeå, H.L., Feldpausch-Parker, A.M., Raitio, K. (Eds.) 2016. Environmental Communication and Community: Constructive and destructive dynamics of social transformation. Routledge. Abingdon. 978-1-138-91386-8.

Bergeå, H.L., Martin, C. & Sahlström, F. 2008. "I don't know what you're looking for": Professional vision in Swedish agricultural extension on nature conservation management. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension. Vol. 14 (4).

Lindström, A. & Bergeå, H. 2007. Klander, identitet och professionell solidaritet. Analyser av klagomål i möten mellan lantbrukare och naturvårdsrådgivare, In: Engdahl, E. & Londén, A-M. (Eds.). Interaktion och kontext. Nio studier av svenska samtal, Lund: Studentlitteratur. pp. 303-324.

Bergeå, H., Hallgren, L., Westberg, L. & Ångman, E. 2013. Dialogprocessen om allemansrätten - underlag för utveckling av dialogmetodik och dialogkompetens. Book series at the Department of Urban and Rural Development.