[TimorLesteStudies] New Book chapter on T-L: The Rebel and the Diplomat: Revolutionary Spirits, Sacred Legitimation, and Democracy in Timor-Leste

[Maj Nygaard-Christensen]

New book chapter on Timor-Leste:



Maj Nygaaard-Christensen. 2011. ‘The Rebel and the Diplomat: Revolutionary
Spirits, Sacred Legitimation, and Democracy in Timor-Leste’. Pp. 209-229
in: Bubandt, Nils and van Beek, Martijn (Eds).  *Varieties of Secularism in
Asia: Anthropological Explorations of Religion, Politics and the
Spiritual*(Routledge)



*K**ey words*: Democracy, international community, Major Alfredo,
Boaventura, Ramos-Horta



The chapter presents an ethnographic analysis of the election campaign of
Ramos-Horta and the rebellion of Major Alfredo in 2007, with a focus on the
turn to religion and ancestral or spiritual legitimacy in contemporary
Timorese politics. The chapter approaches the cases of the two leaders not
as a ’clash’ between modern and traditional notions of legitimacy in
Timor-Leste, but rather as part of a broader negotiation among Timorese
leaders, constituencies, as well as foreign commentators and academics,
about what belongs in a modern, democratic nation-state, and what is, as
Mary Douglas has it, ’out of place’ (Douglas 1966).
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/easttimorstudies/attachments/20111107/653c03a6/attachment.html