Co-habitations: dynamics of power in Lautém (Timor-Leste)
The present Project aims at developing an analysis on the constitution of power and territory in processes of “co-habitation” in the region of Lautém (Timor-Leste). We sustain an inter-subjective view on the mode through which we constitute ourselves in the world based on processes of “co-creation” or “co-constitution” (Toren 1999; Viegas 2007). This perspective leads us to pay particular attention to the mutual influences arising from the existence of distinct social processes, not only side by side, but interacting among them. We overtake the limits of anthropological approaches on space, power and property that do not inter-communicate: some because they convene around close “colonial and post-colonial studies” and tend to reify the State as a subject, others because they focus on ethnographic understandings that do not integrate levels of intermediation between the
experiencing and the instances of institutionalization of power. The approach we propose to develop intersects several areas of knowledge, stressing the co-constitution of the person in its historicity and integrating experiences of diversified worlds. We propose to carry an analysis of the reconfiguration of the relations between space, territory and land tenure, and the instances of representation of political power, focusing on a joint research in the Fataluku region of Bauro (district of Lautém aka Lospalos). Here, we find a dynamic intersections between diffuse forms of power organization based on “patrilineal” systems with a process of entitlement to land currently being deployed in Timor-Leste as well as with the regional expansion of the State
(McWilliam 2001, 2006; Kingsbury in Leach & Kingsbury, forthcoming) The choice of this region derived from our exploratory trip in November 2009.
Pursuing previous work carried out by Feijó (2006, 2009) and Viegas (2007), we aim at looking beyond visions of the “clash of paradigms” (Hohe 2002), considering that the historical experience of life is completed in processes of co-constitution that may assume diverse configurations (Viegas 2007; Cummins & Leach in Leach & Kingsbury, forthcoming). In the present case this means that it is necessary
a) To bridge the gap between the understanding of the Fataluku “ethnic” structures and that of the formal structures of the State. At this level, we shall focus on the search for analytical categories of intermediation;
b) To consider the democratic form of political representation of the modern State which is being created nowadays as a process of social change with its roots in previously co-constituted mechanisms the Fataluku used in their relationships with different actors of political representation.
Our Project develops two research lines articulating areas in which the “principal researcher” (Viegas) and the “nuclear researcher” (Feijó) have previously worked: first, the theme of land tenure and a reflection on the historicity and the epistemological models of intermediation, which was developed in a research centered on an indigenous population in Brazil (Viegas 2009, 2009a, 2010); second, the theme of political representation in the framework of the process of construction and consolidation of a “modern”, democratic State in Timor-Leste post Independence. The “nuclear researcher” has a long experience in the country where he lived for 18 months and carried embryonic investigation on the processes of constitution of democratic institutions as an expression of a dialogue between the formal instances of the modern State and historically anchored forms of political legitimization (Feijó 2009).
The articulation of these two lines will allow us to obtain an integrated and holistic, as well as comparative and generalist view of the ways in which political representation operates on the grounds of instances that vary from grassroots instances (“aldeias” and “sukus”) to higher, intermediary levels (whose definition is now under way) representing an innovation in the construction of a multi-layered State. We aim at an understanding of the way in which political legitimization in its various forms interact in order to build a governance model for territories that are the stage for differentiated and concurrent logics.
Methodologies to be deployed in both lines will intersect in various ways. Investigations on land tenure will be based on fieldwork with participant observation among the Fataluku (Bauro), and supported with “family histories” (Pina Cabral & Lima, 2005). It will consider the observation of actions of cadastral survey of land rights in the region, as well as local elections. Investigations on political representation will articulate an attitude akin to what Raymond Aron calls the “spectateur engagé”– in the period leading up to the preparation and enactment of local instances of decentralized power (“municípios”) due in 2013 –documental work coupled with interviews to major political stakeholders, both on the national and the regional arenas.
Books; scientific articles; conferences.
Principal Contractor is Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Lisbon.
Susana Viegas (coord)