Nation Building in Timor-Leste | Current Resources of Interest

Nation Building in Timor-Leste

The Indonesian withdrawal in September 1999 provided the historical circumstances in which the East Timorese could finally move towards formal nationhood. Understood as those attempts to build new and integrated social and material infrastructure across a defined territory, nation building in Timor-Leste has led to complex and myriad forms of adaptation, subjugation and resistance with regard to existing socio-cultural and institutional norms. As the crisis in 2006 has suggested, the process of nation building is an extremely complex process, not least when it occurs in the wake of mass violence, war and colonialism.

In an effort to understand the broader process of nation building, especially following independence in May 2002, our research has concentrated on a set of subsidiary areas considered important in the process of national construction. Economic development, the controversies over oil in the Timor Sea, the development of the coffee industry and the social impact of the 2004 national census have each been a point of considerable interest.

Focusing on these subsidiary areas of research allows in turn for a consideration of nation building as a broad process. Drawing patterns across these different areas, we are interested in how and why forms of governance have been adopted, why the attempts to change the economic structures have taken the form that they have, and the subsequent impact on identity and people's relationship to nation and state. We are also interested in how Timor-Leste has become a nation during a period of intense globalization, and what this means for how the process of nation-formation has taken place. The answers to these questions are very often taken for granted in Timor-Leste, yet the difficulties faced in the attempts at developing nation building processes suggest that a very dramatic re-orientation in thinking may need to occur.

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Current Resources of Interest

The following represent recently-released documents of particular pertinence to the theme of nation building in Timor-Leste. Please see our Nation Building Resources page for a more extensive list of relevant resources.

    . Brady, Cynthia and David G. Timberman, The Crisis in Timor-Leste: Causes, consequences and options for conflict management and mitigation, USAID, Dili, November 2006.
    . Cotton, James, 'Timor-Leste and the Discourse of State Failure', Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 61, no. 4, December 2007 (forthcoming).
    . Drysdale, Jenny, Sustainable Development or Resource Cursed? An Exploration of Timor-Leste's Institutional Choices, Doctoral Thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 2007.
    . Grenfell, Damian, 'Making Modernity in Timor-Leste', Arena Magazine, no. 90, August-September 2007, pp. 9-12.
    . International Crisis Group, Resolving Timor-Leste's Crisis, Asia Report no. 120, International Crisis Group, Jakarta and Brussels, 10 October 2006.
    . Scambary, James with Hippolito Da Gama and Joao Barreta, A Survey of Gangs and Youth Groups in Dili, Timor-Leste, A report commissioned by Australia's Agency for International Development, AusAID, Dili, 15 September 2006.
    . Trindade, Jose 'Josh' and Bryant Castro, Rethinking Timorese Identity as a Peacebuilding Strategy: The Lorosa'e - Loromonu Conflict from a Traditional Perspective, The European Union's Rapid Reaction Mechanism Programme: Technical Assistance to the National Dialogue Process in Timor-Leste, Dili, 6 June 2007.
    . United Nations, Report of the United Nations Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-Leste, English version and Tetum version, United Nations, Geneva, 2 October 2006.
 



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