[Anthropgrad] Friday Seminars (16 May 08)

[Sin Wen Lau]

Anthropology Student Seminar Series, Semester 1, 2008
Milgate Room, AD Hope
16 May 2008, 3 pm

Political or 'Independen'?: Changing Perceptions of Power and Leadership 
in Timor Leste by Maj Nygaard-Christensen

During Timor's resistance against Indonesia, the resistance leadership 
involved in armed struggle within Timor was surrounded with an air of 
mystery. Individual leaders were revered for their charisma and ability 
to outsmart Indonesian troops, so overwhelming in number. Today, much of 
the political elite in Timor consist of former members of the resistance 
- returned exiles and former guerrillas or clandestine members. My 
interest in this paper is what the shift from being participants in a 
movement /against/ with much popular support to being leaders in a 
modern nation-building project involved in state-level political life 
has meant for these leaders. I will focus firstly on how popular 
narratives of such leaders are changing and secondly, I will look closer 
at the strategies of certain high level leaders in gaining political 
legitimacy in Timor Leste today.

Maj Nygaard-Christensen is a PhD candidate at the Department of 
Anthropology at Aarhus University in Denmark visiting RSPAS until the 
end of May 2008. Her fieldwork was conducted in Timor Leste between 
February and December 2007 and in April 2008, during the time of the 
presidential and parliamentary elections. The PhD focusss on notions of 
leadership and power.

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Lau Sin Wen
Department of Anthropology
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT0200
Australia

Telephone : +61-2-6125-3271
Fax	 : +61-2-6125-4896
Email	 : sinwen.lau at anu.edu.au
Website	 : http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology
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