In the process of building the internal boundaries constituting this international community, also Esperantujo's external boundaries become clear. While people with limited linguistic competence in Esperanto may be accepted in Esperantujo—despite not being able to fully partic- ipate in certain exchanges and events—there are also those who are not entirely welcome. This is the case of people whose difference is conveyed not as a by-product of national diversity, but as peculiarity, and of those whose mindsets and actions diverge from the sets of cosmopolitan principles that back Esperanto—which are the terms and conditions for membership in this community. In this sense, even though the intrinsic ephemerality and the internationalist cosmopolitanism that prevail among present-day Esperantists may make Universal Congresses of Esperanto comparable to the Olympic Games or Universal Exhi- bitions (Malkki 1994; Harvey 1996), ultimately, Esperantujo revolves around building a community that, although not physically gathered at all times, endure in the long term. This implies that, beyond the frame- work of Universal Congresses, the members of Esperantujo are expected to be aware of and sympathetic to the cosmopolitan principles and the language ideology nurturing the language's use.
Along these lines, concentrating on the mediating role of the language drew our attention to how Esperanto becomes meaningful to its speakers by establishing frames wherein their national differences and polit- ical convictions can be communicated. Yet, eventually, Esperanto can only effectively carry out its mediating role through the settings (asso- ciations, debates, congresses, online spaces) and technologies (postal services, magazines, radio broadcasts and digital media) that, as ancillary mediators, enable communication to flow.
It is also worth noting that, even though the mediating role of the language leans on cosmopolitan principles to manage Esperantujos constitutive diversity, a language cannot manage every kind of difference. In this sense, communication in Esperanto is also liable to convey misun- derstandings and disagreements, particularly when it comes to political convictions.
Esperantos cosmopolitan principles can be easily associated with other internationally-driven causes and political stances, ranging from communism and anti-nationalism to the defence of universalism, polit- ical liberalism, democracy and free speech. Over the history ofEsperanto, two ways emerged to address the political antagonisms brought into this equation. On the one hand, the left-wing, workers' Esperanto movement attempted to establish a forum to debate political issues by (re)politicising communication more broadly. On the other hand, the neutral movement advanced the perception of fellow Esperantists as samideanoj, fellow thinkers, marking an attempt to (de)politicise certain aspects of these cosmopolitan sociabilities. Through conflict avoidance, the neutral movement encouraged Esperantists to work towards harmon- ising their political convictions as a way of preventing open antagonisms and ensuring the untroubled continuation of Esperantujo.
9.2 Mapping Community by Being Mobile
To turn the cosmopolitan principles behind Esperanto into sociabilities, those who agreed to learn the language need particular occasions, settings and technologies whereby to use Esperanto. Ranging from face-to-face international congresses to online groups and chats, the spaces that this community occupies became a key theme reverberating throughout this study. Chapter 3 examined how locating the Esperanto community was the first methodological challenge I faced when outlining this research. The real Esperantujo, I was told, resides in the international—and, in mobilising this argument, Esperantists pushed me to bring international
Esperanto congresses to the fore of my ethnography, as presented in Chapter 4. Yet, real Esperantujo has a limited life span: its concrete enact- ments take place for a week, once a year, during the Universal Congress, and for the same period and regularity during the Congress of SAT and the International Youth Congress—apart from other smaller and less international gatherings. In spite of regularly materialising Esperan- tujo, these events cannot provide Esperantists with stable spaces in which they could use the language continuously. As a result of Esperantists not usually being full-time Esperantists, these international congresses—as well as my Tour de France—proved to be unfeasible as permanent field sites for long-term participant observation.
As a response to this analytical and methodological issue, Chapter 6 illustrated what happens when an arbitrary and fixed location becomes imperative. If real Esperantujo is the emic category that defines how the reality of this community depends on its internationality, the, say, 'not-so-real' Esperantujo refers to its less international enactments, such as Esperanto associations. At SAT-Amikaro, Esperanto-France and other associations headquartered in Paris, Esperantists and I were settled, attending weekly meetings and keeping ourselves busy with regular Esperanto-related activities.
Yet, as it turned out, not every local Esperanto-related activity was institutionalised, which set me into motion again. In Chapter 7, even though I was physically within the limits of Ile-de-France, hardly leaving Paris, my interlocutors and I were using our mobile phones to make us mobile. From locating fellow speakers via GPS, texting via instant messaging apps, creating and sharing invitations to face-to-face events via social media, Esperantists gave rise to what was alternatively regarded as a poor replacement for the traditional forms of Esperantujo or a novel way of learning a language, making community and engaging with politics.
In this sense, wherever two or more Esperantists are gathered— either online or face-to-face—using the language, there Esperantujo is. Even though this means this community is potentially everywhere, it also means real Esperantujo is hardly anywhere. With the Universal Congresses standing for the 'capital city of Esperantujo' (Zamenhof, reproduced in Privat 2001: 70—71, my translation), the location of this community can occasionally be fixed on a map, as is the case of the
Universal Congresses that took place in Slovakia, South Korea, Portugal and Finland in recent years. However, as a pop-up community, real Esperantujo is materialised for a short period, being wiped off the map as soon as these gatherings are over. Constantly mapping all the individual connections that stand for the network-like character of the community would result in an over-charted Esperantujo. However, while Esperantujo is potentially everywhere, 'it is not down on any map'—after all, 'true places never are' (Melville 2009: 107). Faced with this spatial instability, what is left is the certainty that we could hardly find real Esperantujo in the same place twice, which makes this community highly mobile and largely unchartable, made up of practices that prevent the community's stability to draw on geographical roots.
9.3 Stability as a Matter of Power, Freedom and Choice
Esperantujo's relative unchartability—which results from the short life- span and shifting location of the events and connections that constitute it—adds up to this community's instability. This instability, in turn, is reinforced by the proportional lack of intergenerational transmission of the language and by the fact, highlighted in Chapter 8, that the regular use of Esperanto relies on its speakers continuously choosing to speak and write in the language and seamlessly engaging with the community. Against this background, the Esperanto movement became consolidated as an enduring and organised attempt to constantly attract speakers to Esperanto and to promote the language's regular use.
Historically carried out by associations, as discussed in Chapters 1 and 5, the Esperanto movement works in ways analogous to tradi- tional social movements, through strategies, arguments and practices to advance a cause. This cause is also linked to others, such as language activism within French territory: in the Occitanie region, most supporters of Esperanto speak and teach Occitan; in Bretagne, the connection is between Esperanto and Breton, whereas, in Paris, several Esperantists see the language as a tool to defend the French language against the influence of English or as a way to liken human languages to computer programming languages. Furthermore, the Esperanto move- ment gathers the support of communists, anarchists and pacifists, as well as advocates for more egalitarian forms of international communication and globalisation.