I Esperanto I Revolution
Revolutionarie and Geeks
Language Polit Media and the InternationalC
Guilherme Fians
ics, Digital Making of an ommunity
palgrave
macmillan
Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks
Guilherme Fians
Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks
Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community
palgrave
macmillan
Guilherme Fians Department of Anthropology University of Brasflia Brasflia, Brazil
ISBN 978-3-030-84229-1 ISBN 978-3-030-84230-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84230-7
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Esperanto is a language like any other — except when it isnt. (Humphrey Tonkin, 2020, personal communication)
We're not as numerous as we wanted,, but we're more than you can imagine. (Anonymous Esperantist from France, 2017)
For Ngan and Regina, the women ofmy life
Acknowledgements
This book began as a simple quest for answers and never ended. But it never ended for a very good reason: one question constantly led me to others and I frequently encountered people along the way who pushed me further. I started to write it almost on my own. Yet, similarly to Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus—but in a much less poetic manner—at the end of it, we were quite a crowd, with a number of people sharing an interest in what I was doing, thinking with me and encouraging my endeavour.
My first thanks go to the Esperanto associations and Esperantists that allowed me to conduct my research with them, in both France and the Netherlands, as well as to those who welcomed me during my stay in France and almost instantly became my friends. Due to my use of pseudonyms, I cannot thank these Esperantists by name, but they know who they are. They taught me almost everything I know about France, digital media and political activism and were responsible for turning Paris into a home for me. I also owe a profound debt to Arandi Gomes Teixeira, who introduced me to Esperanto. Without our conversations, I
X Acknowledgements
might have never learned the language. I was also lucky to meet Fernando Pita, who helped me give shape to this research.
At the University of Manchester—where I began writing this book— I wish to thank those who stayed by my side on all occasions. Firstly, Stef Jansen, who always had encouraging words to share, not only about anthropology, but about life in general. As a careful reader and sharp interlocutor, Stef continuously instigated my curiosity and, above all, made my writing properly inductive. I am also very grateful to my 'mates' Diego Valdivieso, Pedro Silva Rocha Lima, Noah Walker- Crawford and Jeremy Voirol. Through our heated arguments around each other's manuscripts, I learned a lot about anthropology while devel- oping friendships that I hope to carry for life. In addition, I thank Haobin 'Henry' Huang and Shota Kukuladze, who helped me over- come the challenges of being a foreigner in the United Kingdom; to Bill Chapman, who first introduced me to Esperanto speakers in Europe; to the glorious Fallowfield Fellowship and its founding fathers, Sammy Kennedy and Marco Pedroni, for forcing me to take breaks from my research; and to Rosilene and Mario Galindo, who brought some of the flavour of my country of origin to my country of residence. Also, my thanks go to the friends I left in Rio de Janeiro and who always welcomed me back during my years living in the United Kingdom, among which Marcelo Meirelles, Leonardo Soutelo and Jose Maurfcio Grigorovski.
This research was funded by the University of Manchester, the Manchester Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, the Centre for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems and the Esperantic Studies Foundation. I also wish to thank many others, whose names cannot fit in a page, without whom this book would never have seen the light of day. Among them, Humphrey Tonkin—whose support and encouragement I can never thank enough—Sabine Fiedler, Javier Alcalde, Ulrich Lins, Manuela Burghelea, Bert de Wit, Federico Gobbo, Marcio Goldman, Bruna Franchetto, Douglas Holmes, Christina Toren, Penny Harvey, Matt Candea, Angela Torresan and my all-time colleagues from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacional and the University of Manchester. More recently, the University of Brasflia took me in, and colleagues in my new academic home were the ones encour- aging and supporting me during my last manuscript-editing rounds. Also, of course, I thank the editorial team of Palgrave Macmillan, particularly Cathy Scott, who promptly welcomed my project and who, together with Manikandan Murthy and two anonymous reviewers, gave me all the support to improve this manuscript.
Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my family. To Thu Ngan Ngo, who insists on turning me into a better human being and with whom I share everything; to Regina Fians, who keeps teaching and inspiring me and doing more than a mother could do. To Ngan and Regina, I also thank for their patience during my absences and their eternal willingness to listen to me attentively when I asked their opinion about anthropological matters they were totally unfamiliar with. I also wish to thank Pedro Fians, who always encouraged me and raised me with affection; to Wilson and Suely Moreira, for all the conversations and happy moments we spent together; to Erica and Vinicius Moreira and to Ailton Pacheco da Costa Junior, for listening attentively to my all-too- frequent complaints about life; and to Neuza Fians, for the smiles and kisses. Besides, impossible not to mention Edson and Arlete Moreira: my memories of them always make me stronger and give me the courage to keep going.
Some of the data and arguments on vocabulary choice and linguistic authority on Chapter 5 appeared in Esperanto on a chapter at the edited volume The Intercultural Role ofEsperanto, edited by Ilona Koutny, Ida Stria and Mark Farris and published by Adam Mickiewicz Univer- sity/Wydawnictwo Rys. A preliminary version of Chapter 7's discussion on intergenerational language transmission was published as 'Mind the age gap: Communication technologies and intergenerational language transmission among Esperanto speakers in France', in Language Problems and Language Planning (2020, 44:1: 87-108).