The fifth chapter begins with a debate, taking place in an Esperanto association in Paris, over which word to use to refer to a technological device not yet named in Esperanto. As I unpack the terms of this debate, the language ideology that posits Esperanto as fairer, inclusive and more egalitarian takes shape through attempts to (re)politicise communica- tion and depict Esperanto as a collaborative language permanently under construction. Chapter 6, in turn, explores other dynamics taking place in the same Paris-based association, namely the joint engagement of association members with Esperanto and grassroots left-wing politics. Looking at how the connections between the language and certain polit- ical stances seem to have lost momentum along the twentieth century, this chapter analyses how these Esperantists try and reconcile discourses of Esperanto as something of the past and as something oriented towards the future—a future that at times seems out of reach. In dialogue with anthropological works on temporal reasonings, social movements and hopes for the future, I show how, rather than trying to turn Esperanto into the de facto global language, these Esperantists' aims are concrete and involve preserving the ritualised collective behaviour of meeting, being together and drinking wine while debating progressive political perspectives in Esperanto.
In Chapter 7, we move away from the associative milieu to consider how the Internet has reshaped language learning, community-building and political activism. Faced with how the first natively digital genera- tions of Esperantists learn the language online, communicate primarily through text and use GPS devices to arrange meetings, I ask: what is left unsaid when a speech community largely moves from an institu- tionalised, face-to-face configuration to online spaces? I approach this question by exploring the present-oriented features of digital media and the shapes taken by online activism for both collaborative human languages and computer programming languages.
Chapter 8 focuses on individual Esperantists and their present-day practices, unpacking what the language means to its speakers and how they render it useful through practices involving more egalitarian inter- national communication, horizontal knowledge exchange and alternative travelling. This chapter explores what Esperanto and anthropology have to offer one another by inviting us to think about what anthropology gains and what it loses in emphasising discussions on prefiguration, as well as what Esperantujo gains and loses with these present-oriented, prefigurative approaches carried out by Esperantists. Highlighting prefig- urative politics, I argue that, ultimately, the Esperanto movement is only sustainable insofar as the language does not become a de facto global language. Esperanto's wide adoption would turn it into a hegemonic language like any other, and such 'success' of the Esperanto movement would mean the failure of the Esperanto language.
Finally, in drawing to a close—but, above all, not to conclude— Chapter 9 returns to the impermanence of Esperantujo, arguing that instability and ephemerality, rather than flaws, are constitutive elements of this community, without which Esperanto would not be as meaningful to its speakers.
Taking Esperanto as its point of departure and analytical focus, this book ends up not being entirely about Esperanto. Outlining certain narratives about this language's history entails exploring given aspects of European history while scrutinising the Western linear time model and its ethnographic unfoldings. Likewise, producing an ethnographic account of an international congress comprises stretching the bound- aries of the national/international and the fellow/other binarisms which animate anthropology since its early days. Similarly, talking about the dynamics of a left-wing Esperanto association in Paris means digging into the development of political activism in France, and investigating ever-changing languages and uses of communication technologies means regarding speech communities as anything but stable collectives. As we wander through the thickness of these relational assemblages, theoret- ical problems appear preposterously small when faced with the several ethnographic solutions given away by my research participants. At the end of the day, this book is about language politics, community- building, cosmopolitanism, France, political activism and digital media from the perspective of Esperanto speakers—and about the instability and ephemerality that characterise the connections between them all.
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