O que falar em esperanto quer dizer : revisitando políticas prefigurativas, movimentos sociais e as novas esquerdas
Abstract
Since the first half of the twentieth century, a left-wing collective in Paris has organized weekly meetings to debate politics from different progressive perspectives. Interestingly, these debates are held in Esperanto, a language created to fight nationalist rivalries and stimulate international communication. Based on an ethnography of this debate group, this article invites us to rethink how anthropology has used the term prefiguration as a classificatory category to distinguish the political practices of the new left from those of the old left. Examining how Esperanto has historically been labeled a universalist project, I show how the perspective of prefiguration enables us to highlight the ordinary use of this language in the creation of horizontal spaces for the co-production of political knowledge among activists. From this, I argue that the use of prefiguration as a shortcut to distinguish and typify social movements not only is ethnographically counterproductive, but also entails neglecting the convergences that the new and the old left often seek to build in order to enrich their dialogues and collective struggles.
Citation
Moreira Fians , G 2023 , ' O que falar em esperanto quer dizer : revisitando políticas prefigurativas, movimentos sociais e as novas esquerdas ' , Mana: Estudos de Antropologia Social , vol. 29 , no. 1 , pp. 1-31 . https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-49442023v29n1e2023002.pt
Publication
Mana: Estudos de Antropologia Social
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0104-9313Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2023 Mana. Studies in Anthropology. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Description
Funding: Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2021-215).Collections
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