Anticipatory discourse as risk management in professional practice

This article explores the potential of the concept of “anticipatory discourse” to shed light on risk management in professional practices. We focus specifically on one aspect of anticipatory discourse: actions that serve to constrain or facilitate others’ anticipated actions. By analyzing a selection of ethnographic data on participants’ actions in two workplace settings, we discuss how future-oriented actions constitute discursive strategies that may affect both immediate anticipated actions and more uncertain actions in the distant future. The article contributes to the development of anticipatory discourse by suggesting a more nuanced analysis of agency in risk management, mainly by conceptualizing risk management by means of discursive actions: self-oriented discursive amplification and other-oriented discursive coercion .