Guilherme Fians

University of St Andrews · School of History

This article takes a magazine for Esperanto youth as an entryway to explore the links between language ideologies and censorial practices. During the Cold War, Esperanto print media sought a connection with the Third World to present Esperanto as an alternative to US-led English and USSR-led Russian. With anti-imperialism gaining ground in these ma...

Enquanto o mundo acompanhava em tempo real o início da guerra russo-ucraniana em 2022, o artigo sobre a Rússia na Wikipédia de língua inglesa era invadido por edições disruptivas a favor e contra Putin. Tomando essa guerra de edição como ponto de partida, este artigo pergunta: como liberdade, colaboração e conflito se articulam na tentativa de se c...

While journalists performed a long-rehearsed move to announce the death of Elizabeth II on the BBC, several volunteer editors rushed to break the news in the late queen's Wikipedia article. Aside from updating verb tenses from is to was, such edits entailed a revisionist approach, with Wikipedians seeking to shape how the British royals would be po...

En 1952, CED estis fondita de Ivo Lapenna por antaŭenigi la sciencan studon de Esperanto kaj ties diversaj aplikoj en ĉiuj vivosferoj. La sinteno, kiu tiam orientis CED estis ke la lingva diverseco de la mondo konsistigis barilon kiu malfaciligis internacian komunikadon. Konsekvence, se estis ununura mondlingva problemo, ni klopodu trovi ununuran s...

Since Malinowski, taking the natives seriously has been a core issue for ethnographers, as this principle encloses two terms nurturing much theoretical debate in sociocultural anthropology: ‘native’ and ‘point of view’. Yet, this entails a parallel issue: aside from taking one’s natives seriously, have anthropologists been taking other anthropologi...

Resumo Desde a primeira metade do século XX, um coletivo de esquerda de Paris organiza encontros semanais para debater política a partir de perspectivas progressistas diversas. Curiosamente, esses debates são realizados em esperanto, uma língua construída para combater rivalidades nacionalistas e estimular a comunicação internacional. A partir de u...

In the first half of the twentieth century, the fields of interlinguistics and Esperanto studies emerged as branches of linguistics focused on the study of languages designed for international communication (such as Volapük, Esperanto, and Ido). Yet, why are there specific fields to study language creation and why should linguists care about this?...

Pluraj esperantologoj esploras pri Esperantujo surbaze de arkiva esploro kaj etnografia kampolaboro. Per tiuj esplorteknikoj, oni povas pli bone kompreni, ekzemple, kiel kaj kial homoj efektive uzas la lingvon kaj kiel esperantistoj perceptas terminojn kiel Homaranismo kaj samideano. Tamen, kion oni malkovrus se oni uzus etnografian kampolaboron, k...

Postcolonialism has taught anthropology that the Global South is not only an assemblage of fieldsites, but also a space where knowledge is produced. Yet, while anthropologists from nonhegemonic traditions see their voices being taken more seriously in academia worldwide, this seeming openness poses another issue: What are Global South anthropologis...

‘Prefigurative politics’ refers to how activists embody and enact, within their activism, the socialities and practices they foster for broader society. Inspired by anarchist principles, the core practices characterising prefiguration include participative democracy, horizontality, inclusiveness, and direct action. Gaining visibility with the socia...

This book explores how Esperanto – often regarded as a future-oriented utopian project that ended up confined to the past – persists in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century to promote global linguistic understanding, this language was historically linked to anarchism, communism and pacifism. Yet, what political relevance does Esp...

Anthropologists largely draw on the theoretical assumption that the interactional practices underlying hospitality are akin to those of gifting. Yet, by focussing on the giving and receiving of hospitality, such scholarship has failed to address these exchanges’ third element: reciprocating. Faced with this, this article reflects on travelling amon...

During a debate in an Esperanto association in Paris, Esperantists were discussing technology, surveillance, and freedom, when the question of how to say “drone” in Esperanto emerged. At this point, the previous political debate became a linguistic discussion on possible Esperanto equivalents (drono, droneo, or spavo) and vocabulary choice. Based o...

Following the creation of a ground-breaking online language course in 2015, this chapter explores how digital media and the emergence of the first natively digital generations of Esperanto speakers have triggered changes in this speech community. The use of online communication technologies has brought about fast-paced exchanges, a reconsideration...

Beginning with an ethnography of the Universal Esperanto Association's bookshop, in Rotterdam, this chapter investigates how the status of the Esperanto community as an international community relies on the continuous circulation of people and things to overcome the global dispersion of Esperanto speakers. Following the packing and shipping of book...

Focusing on how members of a left-leaning Esperanto association in Paris engage with the seeming decline of Esperanto as a tool for political activism, this chapter explores how Esperantists grapple to advance the language as a timely cause when traditional working-class, left-wing activism loses ground in France. Analysing Esperantists’ nostalgia...

This chapter revisits the key questions asked throughout the book, analysing how Esperanto’s continuous existence and regular use emerge from the fact that the language creates ephemeral settings where Esperantists feel comfortable to express themselves expecting their voices not to go unnoticed. Setting their use of Esperanto apart from their dail...

This chapter unpacks what Esperanto means to its speakers and how they render the language useful through everyday practices of horizontal knowledge exchange, fairer international communication and alternative travelling. This discussion invites the reader to think about what anthropology gains and what it loses in emphasising discussions on prefig...

Based on an ethnographic account of the 2017 Universal Congress of Esperanto, in Seoul, this chapter explores how certain understandings of nationality emerged historically among Esperanto speakers, foregrounding national diversity as the proxy of difference to be valued and celebrated by particular forms of cosmopolitan openness. I argue that, as...

This book transcends the commonplace perception of Esperanto as a ‘language of the past’, drawing on an ethnography carried out primarily in France to investigate how Esperanto’s internationalism is manifested in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century as an attempt to promote global linguistic understanding, Esperanto has been asso...

Is Esperanto, the ‘universal language of peace’, still spoken? Where, how and why do people learn and speak it? Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks begins to address these questions by reassessing the idea that ‘nobody speaks Esperanto anymore’. Esperanto was originally designed by a single man in the late nineteenth century who envisaged it to be...

This chapter focuses on what speakers do with Esperanto while they speak Esperanto. In 2016, while Esperantists in Paris discussed technology, surveillance and freedom, a question emerged, turning the political debate into a linguistic discussion: how to say drone in Esperanto? Relatedly, in a constructed language, how can speakers refer to things...

This chapter immerses the reader in an Esperanto association in Paris, one of the key locations for this research, aiming to map out some aspects of the mise en discours of Esperanto. Understanding how Esperanto has been historically conveyed as timely requires revisiting the battle of artificial languages, through which the history of constructed...

Homoj ofte neglektas la gravecon de la rutino, konsiderante ĉiutagaĵojn enuaj. Tamen, dum oni babilas, ridas, suferas kaj laboras en sia ordinara vivo, oni lernas kaj ankaŭ elformas neordinarajn ideojn. Tiamaniere, antaŭ pli ol 130 jaroj, iu homo pensis pri kiel senkonfl ikte rilati kun siaj najbaroj. Rezulte de tiu ŝajne ordinara konsidero, kreiĝi...

Esperanto is neither an official nor a commonly spoken language anywhere in the world and, due to the limited number of people who speak this language from birth and who teach it to the next generation, the persistence of this speech community cannot rely on intergenerational language transmission. Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in Franc...

Since the Esperanto speech community cannot rely on intergenerational transmission to guarantee its long-term continuity, the Esperanto movement has emerged as an attempted solution to stabilise the community by promoting the language and encouraging continuous engagement with it. In this sense, one of the most interesting wings of the current neut...

One of the core uses of Esperanto as a bridge language relates to the establishment of contacts between people from different origins and backgrounds – between national others – so as one can learn and exchange thanks to the other’s differences and to the diversity that composes the Esperanto community. If the philosophical and political programmes...

Se alguém lhe perguntasse “O que é o esperanto?”, o que você responderia? Seria uma ideia? Um projeto de língua planejada para facilitar a comunicação internacional? Sim, mas há mais de cem anos que o esperanto pode ser definido dessa maneira. Centenas de intelectuais e idealistas já sonharam com esse conceito. No entanto, só o esperanto foi bem-su...

Este trabalho se baseia na etnografia de um encontro entre criançasem uma escola no Rio de Janeiro e dois ex-moradores da Aldeia Maracanã. Umdos pontos centrais da proposta pedagógica dessa escola em questão é a “valorização da cultura brasileira”, levando em consideração suas diversas manifestações e invocando principalmente elementos de culturas...

Neste artigo, busco discutir as narrativas orais elaboradas por crianças principalmente a partir de um diálogo com as narrativas escritas por adultos, mas voltadas para crianças – como as de livros infantis e histórias de contos de fadas. Para isso, desenvolvo algumas das narrativas, brincadeiras e questionamentos com os quais entrei em contato por...

Deleuze dizia que se os prisioneiros são tratados como crianças, estas são tratadas como prisioneiros e sofrem uma infantilização que não é a delas. Durante muito tempo, a antropologia contribuiu para esse teatro de sombras no qual a sociedade desempenha o papel de prisão disciplinadora e as crianças o de seres associais ou antissociais esperando...

A entrevistada dessa edição da Revista Habitus é a antropóloga Christina Toren. Christina é australiana, graduada em Psicologia pelo University College London e doutora em Antropologia Social pela London School of Economics. Atualmente, é professora na University of St. Andrews, Escócia. Seu interesse pela variedade e complexidade dos seres humanos...

The interviewed person in this issue is the anthropologist Christina Toren. Christina is Australian by birth, she graduated in Psychology from University College London and gained her Ph.D in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Currently, she holds a professorial chair at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her interest in h...

O presente trabalho tem por intenção identificar e discutir os elementos nacionalistas e universalistas presentes no discurso e na prática do Esperanto. Para iss o, tomamos como ponto de partida uma descrição do Esperanto, em seus principais aspectos: enquanto idioma internacional, filosofia e cultura. A partir daí, mostrarmos que, em muitos casos,...

O ano de 2011 foi um tempo de muitas mudanças e novas reflexões na Revista Habitus. Nesse ano, passamos por uma intensa renovação do Comitê Editorial-composto por estudantes de graduação da UFRJ-e alteramos ainda nosso Conselho Editorial-formado por professores de diversas universidades do Brasil e do mundo. É com grande satisfação que percebemos q...

Nossa entrevistada nessa edição é Maria Celi Ramos da Cruz Scalon. Graduada em Comunicação Social pela Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), é Mestre e Doutora em Sociologia pelo Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ). Cursou um aperfeiçoamento na Universidade de Warwick, além de duas especializações na Universidade de Mic...