ABSTRACT
Grounded in participant observation complemented by interviews, this chapter zooms into the everyday construction of banal nationalism, mainly through linguistic nationalism, in two Emmaus communities. It looks into the consequences for individuals’ access, legitimacy and degree of participation, with a focus on non-standard or additional speakers of the dominant language(s). The results show that linguistic indexes of national belonging largely mediate the incorporation and socialisation into a local node of a transnational social movement. Both communities placed the onus on outsiders to learn the hegemonic linguistic norm, whether monolingual or bilingual. In London, the monolingual norm in English ideologically erased multilingualism. English was naturalised as a gatekeeping device in conjunction with legal constraints such as legal leave to remain in the UK and having recourse to public funding. Elizabeth II’s Jubilee celebrations further reinforced English nationalism but were met with resistance by Irish and Scottish members. Emmaus Barcelona was characterised by a bilingual Catalan-Spanish norm that overrides the traditional authority of Catalan as an authentic language. Nevertheless, it coexisted with an unconscious, double-edged linguistic etiquette triggering a switch into monolingual Spanish with castellans and newly arrived migrants. Despite its openness to migrants, this community also relegated multilingual practices to backstage spaces.
