1st Edition
Community, Solidarity and Multilingualism in a Transnational Social Movement A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Emmaus
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Community, solidarity and multilingualism in a transnational social movement presents a critical sociolinguistic ethnography of the Emmaus movement that analyses linguistic and discursive practices in two local communities in order to provide insight into solidarity discourses and transnational communication more broadly. Integrating perspectives from a range of disciplines, the monograph seeks to understand the ways in which social movements are maintained across disparate communities grounded in shared cultural referents and communicative practices but not necessarily a shared language. The book focuses on Emmaus, the solidarity movement that emerged in post-war France which brings formerly marginalised people together with others looking for an alternative lifestyle into live-in communities dedicated to recycling work and social projects.
The book first offers a historical overview of the Emmaus movement more generally, moving into an account of its development and spread across national and linguistic borders. The volume draws on data from two Emmaus communities in Barcelona and London to analyse the everyday communicative and discursive practices that appropriate and resignify the shared transnational movement ideas in different socio-political, economic, historical and linguistic contexts.
Community, solidarity and multilingualism in a transnational social movement considers the social implications of local practices on the situated (re)production and evolution of transnational social movements more generally and will be of particular interest to students and researchers in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse studies, cultural studies, and sociology.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Language, discourse and transnationalism in a social movement xx
Emmaus as a holistic social movement xx
Investigating sociolinguistic articulation across borders xx
Theoretical approaches xx
Critical ethnographic sociolinguistics xx
Transnational social movements xx
Community as a nexus xx
An ethnographic journey into a transnational field xx
Access, collaboration and positioning xx
An ethnographic toolbox xx
Structure of the book xx
Chapter 2: Historicising the transnational expansion of a social movement through key events and texts xx
Introduction xx
Transnational and multilingual expansion of a French movement xx
Foundation and "Catacombs period" (1949-1954) xx
"Insurrection of Goodness" in France (1954) and early expansion (1955-1969) xx
From the First World Assembly (1969) to the politicisation of the movement (1988) xx
Historicising religion and politics in two different Emmaus communities xx
Faith traditions and socio-political activism xx
Emmaus Barcelona: Progressive Catholicism and post-‘68 activism xx
Emmaus London: Charity and social enterprise xx
Concluding remarks: A solidarity mission over time xx
Chapter 3: Transnational articulation and socialisation through the Emmaus founding story xx
Introduction: A social movement tells a "new story" xx
Conceptual framework: Collective identity through narrative chronotopes xx
"A story of us": A chronotopic analysis of the Emmaus origin story xx
An ethnographic analysis of the movement’s founding story in situated interactions xx
Socialisation into "stories of us": Oral storytelling and semiotic artefacts xx
"Stories of self": Personal narratives of transformation xx
Concluding remarks: Creating sameness in the Emmaus social movement xx
Chapter 4: Discursive localisations of solidarity in two socio-political contexts xx
Introduction xx
"Towards other reasons to live": Alter-globalisation discourses in Emmaus Barcelona xx
Snapshot: "Stories of now" in socio-political activism xx
Zooming in: A residential project for migrants xx
"Emmaus, the homeless charity that works": Discourses of reciprocity and skilling in the UK xx
Snapshot: "Stories of now" in homeless activation xx
Zooming in: Voluntary work schemes for the homeless xx
Concluding remarks: Solidarity at the intersection of transnational trends, nation-state regimes and individual trajectories xx
Chapter 5: Language ideologies for negotiating positioning in the Emmaus social movement xx
Introduction xx
Two distinct visions of Emmaus as a movement xx
Emmaus as a "multi-national of the heart" xx
Emmaus as a rhizomatic network xx
Constructing positioning in Emmaus through language ideologies of lingua francas xx
Deproblematising language: French and Spanish as lingua francas in a Catalan community xx
Problematising language: Tensions between English and French in a recent English community xx
Concluding remarks: Ideologies of multilingualism and positioning in the
movement xx
Chapter 6: Linguistic nationalism and the erasure of multilingualism in local Emmaus communities xx
Constructing language: Between fixity and fluidity in localities xx
Fitting into (linguistic) nationalism xx
Emmaus London: Constructing a monolingual space in an English charity xx
Emmaus Barcelona: Tensions between monolingual and bilingual norms xx
Backgrounding multilingualism in everyday practices xx
Emmaus London: Institutional erasure of multilingual biographies xx
Emmaus Barcelona: Multilingualism and new migrants xx
Concluding remarks: Nationalist ideologies in a transnational social movement xx
Chapter 7: Language, transnational solidarity and utopia in an imagined community xx
Emmaus as a utopia made of "walking words" xx
What’s the (hi)story? Key findings about Emmaus as a social movement xx
Towards a sociolinguistics of transnationalism xx
What now? The story continues xx
Appendix 1: Universal Manifesto of the Emmaus movement (1969)
Appendix 2: Abbé Pierre’s Radio Appeal on 1st February 1954 (short version)
Appendix 3: Orientations – Propositions – Questions adopted at the 6th Emmaus International General Assembly in Verona (1988)
Appendix 4: Transcription conventions
References
Index
Biography
Maria Rosa Garrido Sardà is Lecturer in English Linguistics at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland
