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

and constrain people's lives (Linklater, 1996: 279, Cox, 1981: 97-9). It is bestunderstood through Cox's distinction between problem solving theory and criticaltheory, where problem-solving theory, drawing on structuralist understandings ofinstitutionalism, takes existing structures as the framework for research, but criticaltheory "calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how andwhether they might be in the process of changing" (1981: 129). According to thecritical theorist, existing power structures cannot be taken for granted but must beconsidered in their historical context, analysed in terms of who they include andexclude, and viewed in terms of whether and how they might be changing (Cox 1981;Kincheloe and McLaren 2003; Linklater 2003). Underlying critical theory is itsdialectic approach—the epistemological stance that reason and reality are intimatelytied to each other. The emancipatory role of critical theory is to bring to the surfacethis constant back and forth between theory and material reality (How, 2003: 3-4).This study takes a critical theory approach for two reasons. First, viewed from withina community, traditional institutional structures are regarded as equally formal inquality to modern institutional structures, and are integral to guiding and shapingcommunal life (Hohe, 2002a, Hohe and Nixon, 2003, Ospina and Hohe, 2001). Fromthis perspective, the relative strength and weakness of modern and traditionalinstitutions cannot simply be taken for granted. As critical theory comes from theunderstanding that even those institutions or structures that are most embedded withina society are not natural or given (Cox, 1981: 129), it provides a useful frameworkthrough which to analyse the impact that these institutional structures have in shapingcommunal relations.Second, critical theory provides a framework through which to examine not only thecoexistence of modern and traditional structures but also to contextualise them withinthe broader power relations of a Timorese village. As Kincheloe and McLaren (2003:440) note, the ideologies that underpin the hegemonic 'naturalisation' of powerrelations within a community are always contested by various groups with differentagendas. Critical theory provides a framework through which to conceptualise theclose interrelationship between ideas, institutions and material capabilities that is partof the ongoing process of institutionalisation (Kincheloe and McLaren, 2003: 471,Cox, 1981: 140). By taking a critical approach, we can begin to interrogate the31