[TimorLesteStudies] New book by Lisa Palmer: Water Politics and Spiritual Ecology: Custom, Environmental Governance and Development

[Hannah Loney]

New book:

*Water Politics and Spiritual Ecology: Custom, Environmental Governance and
Development *(Routledge 2015)

by Lisa Palmer, University of Melbourne, Australia (email:
lrpalmer at unimelb.edu.au)

The culmination of a decade of ethnographic research in Timor Leste, this
book addresses a critical need for a sustained geographical and
anthropological inquiry into the social issues of water governance.
Exploring the ritual ecological practices, contexts and scales through
which use, negotiation over and sharing of water occurs at the local level,
this book shows the complex functioning and social, cultural, economic and
environmental interdependencies of hydrological societies in the eastern
region of Timor Leste. It examines the difficulties local communities face
in having their rights recognised and their efforts to maintain and assert
control of their waterscapes in the face of rapidly changing water
governance institutions.

"This superb study of water, kinship, affinity, ritual, and narrative
seamlessly brings together Timor Leste’s past and present and provides an
original perspective on this post-colonial nation-state. It is
indispensable reading for scholars and policy-makers concerned with the
problematic relationship between local communities and national
policies." *–David
Hicks, Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, U.S.A., and
Life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, U.K.*

"With great clarity and style, Palmer uncovers an unsuspected universe of
intricate connections between society and nature created by the flow of
water on the island of Timor. Like all great ethnographies, this book is a
revelation."*– J. Stephen Lansing, Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore*
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