Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

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The xefe suku's role as a bridge for external actors poses a new set of governancechallenges in the suku, particularly if they include additional resources coming intothe community. This was apparent in comparing internal conflicts that arose withinthe suku of Fatulia (Venilale) and the suku of Ainaro (Ainaro). While the xefe suku ofFatulia had attracted some development projects, in suku Ainaro there were noprojects reported coming in from external sources. As a result, the contests for powerand resources and resultant challenges to the xefe suku's leadership that were oftenarticulated in Fatulia were not so apparent in Ainaro. There are, of course, significantdifferences between the two suku, and local history is an important factor indetermining the extent of conflict and divisiveness within any suku. However, therewere also structural issues at play that are directly related to the everyday politics ofmutual recognition (or, in this case, mis-recognition) between different leaders withinthe suku.In coordinating an incoming project for the suku, the xefe suku must work through thexefe aldeia who in turn will coordinate with xefe uma kain to smooth the way for theproject and provide labour if necessary. Except within his or her own uma kain, thiscoordination is generally something the xefe suku is unable to do alone, as he or sheoften does not hold sufficient power with other uma kain. This coordination withdifferent aldeia is not always easy, and conflicts and disagreements between xefe sukuand xefe aldeia often arise—a source of frustration for all concerned.The conflicts that arise can be intense, and some xefe suku have implementeddeliberate strategies to overcome this difficulty. For example, one xefe suku inVenilale preferred to evenly apportion NGO income to each aldeia for them toimplement smaller projects. However, while this strategy has been successful indealing with allegations of corruption and incompetence made against the xefe sukuby the xefe aldeia it has been less successful for the projects themselves. As the xefesuku explained, the money had sometimes been wasted in unsustainable investmentssuch as buying a small tractor that the community did not have the capacity tomaintain. In addition, such a strategy is also not likely to be in the best interest of thesuku as a whole as economies of scale come into consideration. Nonetheless, in thecontext of a fractured suku, the 'buy-in' of the xefe aldeia is needed and a number of163
xefe suku explained that the cost of a bad relationship between the xefe suku and xefealdeia is simply not worth it. As the xefe suku of Uai Laha in Venilale explained:The xefe aldeia is elected by the people but some of them only follow their privateinterests… Some bring issues from the people to us; some never bring the interests ofthe people to us. They kind of close the way to the people... We as xefe suku alwaysmake them do programs for the people, but when we don't follow what they wantthey can close the way and we cannot do anything.However, following interviews with xefe aldeia and other community members, adifferent perspective emerged, where they argued that the xefe suku also workedaccording to his own interests, without adequately involving them in decisionmaking,and without transparency. As one community member stated:Xefe suku as head of village, they are literate, they feel that they have power, they feelthat they are the leaders. But xefe aldeia are illiterate and feel they don't have power,they feel like the office boy. They're told to 'Go there and tell your people that we areworking down there today'… It needs to be remembered as well that any projectcoming into the village involves two or three aldeia rather than just one. So in thatcase they need more coordination and the person who has more power is the xefesuku rather than the xefe aldeia.These conflicts were a consistent theme throughout many suku and point to thestructural problem of sharing power in a segmented suku where the xefe suku wieldsmost economic power, but the xefe aldeia wields social power within their familygroups and together with the xefe uma kain is the key local leader for mostcommunity members. Shepherd's investigation into development projects in Timoresevillages made a similar point, in which he argues that community participation is"best viewed as emergent, contested, fractured, and negotiated rather than stable orgiven [and where] its parameters are conditioned by distributions in authority andnotions of equity" (2009: 318).These fracture lines and points of contestation are not random, and are most evidentbetween different aldeia. In comparing the relative experiences of Ainaro, wherethere are very few external resources entering the suku, and Fatulia, where the xefe164
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Local Governance in Timor-Leste:The
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT‘I hereby gran
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are some important points of tensio
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the Canossian sisters in Ainaro—M
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2.6 The Issues of Cross-Cultural Re
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LIST OF FIGURESFigure One: The Deve
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Tara banduUma kainUma lulikXefe Ald
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within, I had failed to recognise t
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anthropology of development (Shephe
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prefer the term 'local' to recognis
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evolve around ideas of traditional
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institution that is considered to b
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the case given the emphasis on cond
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Within these increasingly murky pol
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1.3 Case Study SitesVenilaleVenilal
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The reasons for choosing Venilale a
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and influences can have on the loca
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played out since decolonisation. Th
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geographically 'outwards' from uma
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CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWO
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2.1 FieldworkFieldwork was conducte
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marked differences in people's idea
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interactions between modern and tra
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then asking for advice on who else
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answer specific questions about how
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Every conversation and every experi
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discussions. This took a little tim
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crucial to the research question—
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CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTUALISING POST
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epresentation through democratisati
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of coordination between these diffe
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equally problematic, as this succes
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government, and Huntington noted th
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Westernise. Equally, the specificit
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which individuals both shape and ar
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expanded this understanding to incl
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within a society. As Remmer puts it
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is to distribute power to some and
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To explain this point, he makes the
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provided by public policy" (Fukuyam
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Gramsci's account of hegemonic powe
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From this perspective, Gramsci's id
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outcomes. Rather, it structures soc
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'shadow side' of the everyday polit
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The centrality of these kin-based g
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4.1 Formation of Political Hybridit
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While the rule of the liurai was in
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to be rejoined. But as local politi
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in Europe, this was seen somewhat d
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did not make life any easier for th
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governor, but slowly seats were inc
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The movement towards decolonisation
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As the politics reached gradually b
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appointed traditionally (Ospina and
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esistance to Indonesian rule (Gunn
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outrage across the world. Following
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f) To assist in the establishment o
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egan to return from their hiding pl
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for a Constituent Assembly (CA) and
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these other factors reveal a more c
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SECTION TWO: EXAMINING LOCAL GOVERN
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hold spiritual and ritual responsib
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Page 183 and 184: automatically become part of the lo
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Page 189 and 190: power within Timorese communities.
Page 191 and 192: Such structural constraints, howeve
Page 193 and 194: Across every suku in Venilale and A
Page 195 and 196: was built for their most remote ald
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Page 209 and 210: communities have created various fo
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Page 213 and 214: of fundamental importance in consid
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Page 221 and 222: BINNS, T. (2006) 'Doing Fieldwork i
Page 223 and 224: CHESTERMAN, S. (2002) 'East Timor i
Page 225 and 226: DEGNBOL-MARTINUSSEN, J. (2002) 'Dev
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Lincoln, Y. (Eds.) The Landscape of
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GRENFELL, L. (2006) 'Legal Pluralis
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HOWARTH, D. (2000) Discourse, Bucki
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LANDMAN, T. & HAUSERMANN, J. (2003)
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MERRY, S. E. (1988) 'Legal Pluralis
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OSPINA, S. & HOHE, T. (2001) Tradit
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RUDOLPH, L. I. (1965) 'The Modernit
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THAKUR, R. & VAN LANGENHOVE, L. (20
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WORK, R. (2002) 'Overview of Decent
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