FOHO VERSUS DILI: The political role of place in East Timor national imagination
REALIS
FOHO VERSUS DILI: The political role of place in East Timor national imagination
Autor Correspondente: Kelly Silva | [email protected]
Palavras-chave: Timor-Leste, práticas costumeiras, construção da nação, Dili, montanhas.
Resumos Cadastrados
Resumo Português:
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 postcolonial
East Timor.
Resumo Inglês:
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 postcolonial
East Timor.
