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<P><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT size=3>Palmer, Lisa, de Carvalho, Demetrio A.,
'Nation building and resource management: The politics of nature in Timor
Leste, Geoforum (2007), doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.09.007
(in-press).</FONT></STRONG> </FONT></P>
<P align=left><FONT size=2>Available Online 19 November 2007:<BR><BR><A
href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V68-4R5G3G0-1-3&_cdi=5808&_user=559483&_orig=browse&_coverDate=11%2F19%2F2007&_sk=999999999&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkWb&md5=83b50bad55a113e810b467c8dce6512b&ie=/sdarticle.pdf">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V68-4R5G3G0-1-3&_cdi=5808&_user=559483&_orig=browse&_coverDate=11%2F19%2F2007&_sk=999999999&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkWb&md5=83b50bad55a113e810b467c8dce6512b&ie=/sdarticle.pdf</A><BR><BR><FONT
size=3><STRONG>Abstract<BR></STRONG></FONT><FONT size=2>This paper examines the
role of custom and tradition in the process of nation building and resource
management in post-independence Timor Leste (East Timor). While customary land
tenure is alluded to but not explicitly recognized under the Timorese
Constitution, it is clearly stated that all natural resources are owned by the
State. However, this paper argues that rather than waiting for the government to
create land and resource management related laws, local people in Timor Leste
are making and remaking their own laws, mobilizing their customary practices
and, increasingly, ‘performing’ their traditions in public demonstrations of
their extant capacities. In part, this process can be read as a way of enticing
in outsiders, making them a party to the law making process, a witness to its
legitimacy. Often critical to such processes, is the ability of local level
leaders to draw in outsiders through their engagements with the idea of
‘nature’– a concept which allows diverse interests to come together in
conversation and build relationships despite what is often a dissonance in the
meanings and priorities attributed to the concept (see Tsing, A.L.,
2005.Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press,
Princeton and Oxford). The paper focuses on a view from the margins – Tutuala in
the far east of the country – and ways in which this community is attempting to
both resist and embrace the developmental hegemony of a centrist state. This, it
is argued, is a case which demonstrates the power of the local (both ritually
and politically) to shape and intervene in the national development process and
the associated discourses of nature preservation.</FONT></FONT><FONT
size=2><FONT size=2><FONT face=AdvPSSym size=1></P>
<P></P>
<P align=left></FONT> 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.<BR><BR>Keywords: Timor Leste; Nature; Nation building; Resource
management; Politics; Custom; Tradition; Marginality<BR><BR>Bu
Wilson<BR>Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet)<BR>College of Asia and
the Pacific, RSPAS<BR>Australian National University<BR>Canberra
ACT 0200<BR>AUSTRALIA<BR><BR>T: 02 6125 3194<BR>F: 02 6125
1507<BR>M: 0407 087 086<BR>E: Bu.Wilson@anu.edu.au<BR><BR><BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://regnet.anu.edu.au">http://regnet.anu.edu.au</A><BR><BR>ANU Cricos
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