[TimorLesteStudies] Publication: Harbouring Traditions in East Timor: Marginality in a Lowland Entrepôt

Jennifer Drysdale jenster at cres10.anu.edu.au
Fri Oct 12 11:15:00 EST 2007



Harbouring Traditions in East Timor: Marginality in a Lowland Entrepôt


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ANDREW McWILLIAM
Department of Anthropology, Research School of 
Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National 
University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia Email: 
<mailto:andrew.mcwilliam at anu.edu.au>andrew.mcwilliam at anu.edu.au


Modern Asian Studies (2007), 41: 1113-1143 Cambridge University Press



Abstract

Drawing on the literature of networks and 
marginality, this paper explores the social 
history of the small trading port of Com on the 
northeast coast of Timor. Com's marginality, as I 
define it, is constituted as a remote outpost of 
inter-island and trans-local trade networks of 
the Indonesian archipelago, and reproduced in its 
contemporary isolation from centres of economic 
power and processes of the global market. The 
paper draws on narrative traditions and 
documentary evidence to chart Com's fluctuating 
historical fortunes and contemporary cultural 
practices. In the fragile post-independence 
environment of Timor Leste, the resident 
population of Com is once again looking towards a 
creative engagement with external others in the hope of renewed prosperity.



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East Timor Studies www.etstudies-aust.org  




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