lundi 2 avril 2007

Research problematic on politisation of Esperanto movement

Esperanto is a constructed language which appeared at the end of the 19th century. Its author seek to make this language an international communication tool. This neutral project fascinated a lot of people all over the world who funded the Esperanto movement to promote this language.

There are today Esperanto speakers in more of 115 countries and the movement seems well structured by several associations and institutions.

In spite of formal neutrality announced by most Esperanto associations, Esperanto pertains of policy because its support movement has recourse to political authorities. Without holding them responsible for the international communication issue, the Esperanto militants blame them for making use of Esperanto. Esperanto is so perceived as an infinitely more efficient, equitable and financially attractive solution. Therefore the Esperantist militants give themselves a double mission: information of the general public and call to public authorities.

The subject consists of two parts:

- On the one hand, a study the militants themselves (understand what in their socialization, their professional route or their feeling urge them to assume the cause of Esperanto)
- On the other hand, a study on the run actions (sensitization of public, call to indignation, to expert opinion or to politician, participation in election, etc.).

To reply this problematic, I will use the paradigm of frame analysis especially for the second part. I will take advantage of the information collected in the first part thanks to the distinction between reasons and motives used by some French political science researchers specialists of the social movements. The first one corresponds to frames in the frame analysis (reasons officially announced by the movement as motivations) and the second one corresponds to inner motives of commitment, they can be unconscious).

Among the hypothesis, I can note some ones:

- As the Esperanto movement is heterogeneous and the Esperantists are very various, the militants various motives.
- On the contrary, the reasons called upon by the militants to justify their commitment are similar (they suit in fact the « politico-linguistiquement correct » speech).
- The Esperanto movement has little financial and human resources. Its followers however organize actions which are a matter for collective action repertoire.
- Facing a lack of resources and a impossibility to attract the attention of the mass media, some militants decided invest political arena.