Dr Guilherme Moreira Fians
Leverhulme Research Fellow
Biography
Guilherme Fians is Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews (affiliated with the Institute for Transnational and Spatial History) and Co-Director of the Centre for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems. He is also a member of the School Ethics Committee and has been supervising MLitt students at St Andrews. Guilherme holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester and has previously held teaching and research positions at the universities of Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Manchester, São Paulo and Brasília.
Research areas
Guilherme's current project examines how languages and media have been mobilised for the (re)production of certain viewpoints about political and scientific issues. This project takes cross-border communication in the constructed language Esperanto as its entry point to ask: what role have particular languages and particular media played regarding international knowledge production in the late twentieth century and at present? This involves two core avenues of research: on the one hand, the analysis of controversies over how to convey (or avoid) debates about imperialism and post-colonialism in the Esperanto media during the Cold War period and, on the other hand, an outlook towards how historical revisionism regarding the death of Elizabeth II takes the shape of a colossal edit war in the English-language Wikipedia at present.
From 2015 to 2021, Guilherme looked at how young Esperanto speakers in France engage with the language through activism for free speech and against linguistic discrimination. In using Esperanto online and in street protests, the joint activism for the language and other causes gains ground through the freedom to code supported by open-source software activists and through the prefigurative practices advanced by alter-globalisation movements such as the Gilets jaunes.
Previously, Guilherme's interest in the intergenerational transmission of language and knowledge led him to a project on meaning-making in dialogue with scholarship on child development and youth studies. In line with his commitment to multilingualism in academia, Guilherme has published and communicated his research outcomes in English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish and Esperanto.
Selected publications
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Open access
Kontraŭ la esceptismo de Esperanto(logio): unuapaŝa etnografia aliro al tiu studkampo
Moreira Fians, G., 21 Nov 2022, In: Esperantologio / Esperanto Studies. 3, 11, p. 108-131 24 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Prefigurative politics
Moreira Fians, G., 18 Mar 2022, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Stein, F. (ed.). Cambridge University Press, p. 1-18 18 p. (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
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What can the subaltern speak about?
Moreira Fians, G., 6 Sep 2022, American Anthropologist, Online Content (Colonial Hauntings Series).Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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Open access
Antaŭparolo: EES, kuraĝigante la disvolviĝon de novaj ideoj ekde 1949
Moreira Fians, G. & Tonkin, H., 2021, In: Esperantologio / Esperanto Studies. 2, 10, p. 6-8 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial
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Open access
Building community through hospitality: indirect obligations to reciprocate in a transnational speech community
Moreira Fians, G., 19 Aug 2021, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Ethnography. OnlineFirst, p. 1-20 20 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Esperanto revolutionaries and geeks: language politics, digital media and the making of an international community
Moreira Fians, G., 2021, 1 ed. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 267 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Lingvo kiel ĉies propraĵo, ŝanĝo kiel ĉies rajto: Vortelekto, lingva aŭtoritato kaj normigado en Esperanto
Moreira Fians, G., 2021, The Intercultural Role of Esperanto. Koutny, I., Stria, I. & Farris, M. (eds.). Poznan: Wydawnictwo Rys and Adam Mickiewicz University, p. 175-188 14 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Mind the age gap: Communication technologies and intergenerational language transmission among Esperanto speakers in France
Moreira Fians, G., 2020, In: Language Problems and Language Planning. 44, 1, p. 87-108 22 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Die Neutralität einer politischen Partei: Aktivismus und Sprachenpolitik unter Esperanto-Anhängern in den Europäischen Parlamentswahlen
Moreira Fians, G., 2018, In: Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik. 2018, p. 11-33 23 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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La kosmopolito kaj la aliulo: Historiaj konsideroj pri diferenco kaj diverseco laŭ la vidpunkto de esperantistoj
Moreira Fians, G., 2018, En la Mondon Venis Nova Lingvo: Festlibro por la 75-jariĝo de Ulrich Lins. Gotoo, H., Goro, C. K. & Vergara, J. A. (eds.). New York: Mondial, p. 475-495 21 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter