Closing Moves: How Facilitators Discursively Address Challenges in a Convergent Phase of Public Meetings

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Facilitators of public meetings commonly have a complex task to guide participants through tensional phases of divergent discussions and convergent decision-making conversations. Their task becomes particularly demanding in the convergent phase when participation is the most influential, while this phase requires a structured communicative focus. This study analyzes how facilitation challenges are discursively manifested during a convergent phase in public meetings. Deploying the concept of moves, the paper also analyzes how the facilitators discursively address these to accomplish the meetings’ aims. The study presents three challenges pertaining to topical detours, lack of concretization when formulating suggestions, and ownership of the process. Recurring moves are identified to address these challenges, highlighting common discourse practices used by facilitators and providing insights to the discursive patterns of this crucial phase in public meetings.