Auteur•e•s

A sociolinguistic ethnography of transnational social movement

Why is an “international movement of solidarity” interesting for sociolinguists? The Emmaus movement, with over 350 groups in 37 countries (Emmaus International, 2019), is traditionally organised in communities made up of people with diverse social and linguistic backgrounds. Each group revolves around three pillars: 1) unconditional welcome, as these people live together, 2) recycling work, together with external volunteers, to sustain the community and fund social projects, and 3) solidarity projects both locally and abroad. My research analyses the (re)production and appropriation of this transnational formation through situated interactions and texts in and among local groups. Firstly, I sought to understand how similar semiotic, communicative and discursive practices in local communities created sameness across multiple, heterogeneous groups. I was also intrigued by the other side of the coin, namely, how difference was produced locally in different nation-state, historical and linguistic contexts. Each and every Emmaus group is simultaneously recognisable as part of the Emmaus movement and unique in its discursive and linguistic appropriations. Analysing sameness and difference as two sides of appropriation allowed me to document social inclusion and exclusion through the distribution of legitimate linguistic and discursive resources in everyday practices. In order to answer my research questions, I conducted a multi-sited ethnography of two communities, one in Greater London and another one in the Barcelona province. My data were mainly collected in 2011-2012 and include fieldnotes of work activities, assemblies and meals; institutionally-produced documents; and transcripts of both recorded assemblies and interviews with residents and volunteers.