Foho versus Dili: The political role of place in East Timor national imagination
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: This article discusses aspects of the topogenic processes involved in the East Timor nation building. Foho (mountains) and Dili are so presented as particular places, devised as products of long-lasting government practices in Timor. Based on the controversies surrounding marriage prestations in the contemporary Dili, the representations projected onto the foho are explored. I argue that the mountains are characterized, among others things, as the loci of “usos e costumes” (customs), of sacred lands and objects, of origin houses, of customary law, and of the ancestors to whom most East Timor people are related and where a series of required rituals are performed to maintain the normal flow of life. As in many other territories that were colonized belatedly, we see in East Timor the urban/rural, town/hinterland oppositions at work which resulted from colonial bifurcate State. While placing such oppositions on a comparative perspective with Oceanic and South Eastern Asian countries, I also claim that they are the base for the politics of custom that have been re-emerged in the post-colonial East Timor.
Author: Kelly Silva
Institution: Universidade de Brasília
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1588536285