Translation in Crisis, Crisis as Translation
p. 65-80
Note de l’éditeur
Anthropologist, Associate professor – Fernando Pessoa University, Porto, Portugal (pseixas@ufp.edu.pt), Project PTDC/ANT/81065/2006 (Fundação Para a Ciência e a Tecnologia)
Texte intégral
1-Introduction
1This article focusses on the 2006 crisis in Timor-Leste presenting it as a founding moment for the independent nation, the ‘first ritual war’ after independence in which the core cultural problem of Timor-Leste was revealed: Translation of Traditions.
2I will argue that the Crisis of 2006 revealed a Crisis of translation and a Crisis as translation. To begin with, several pasts were brought to the front stage and put into discussion, which ultimately have become violent. This violence, as the evidence of crisis, was in itself discussed in order to translate it, the only way of creating a future.
3The idea of Translation already has a non underestimated tradition in Anthropology, more evident in interpretative and post-modern trends, through which Anthropological science and its translating cultures regimes were, in fact, conceived as in the centre of western politics.64 Translation both as a problem and a tool concept is indeed at the core of anthropological thinking since the linguistic turn by which culture became a network of shared signs and meanings, Anthropology being a writing cultures process and the anthropologist himself mainly a writer.65 In fact, somehow the scattering of anthropological thinking in cultural studies, feminist and gender studies as well as race and post-colonial studies is evidence both of the relevance of the political problem of translation and of different perspectives and perspectives toward perspectives as methodology, in a word, multiple translation, in cultural analysis throughout the last decades.
4Translation is at the core when culture is defined as an open process understandable as ‘diasporas and counter diasporas66’, as ‘Multi-sited narratives67’, as ‘Travel68’, as ‘contact zones69’, as ‘disjuncture and conjunctures70’, etc. As a result, identity is also being understoodood more and more as ‘frontier’ and ‘in betweeness71’, as ‘mediation’ and ‘hybridism72’, as cultural brokerage73 in which individuals and groups seem themselves as being in between at least two both conflicting and ambiguous set of values. This leads to a model of, as well as a model for, culture defined through ‘third space74’or ‘other space’ or heterotopy75: as a ‘bridge space76’, as ‘third cultures77’, as ‘syncretism78’, as ‘cosmopolitism79’, etc.
5Translation is thus, for many reasons, a ‘metaphor of contemporary times’80and Anthropology is part of the problem in the translated wor (l) ds,81 we constructed over time, as being necessary to focus on the meanings of Cultural Translation.82 In what Timor-Leste is concerned, ‘translation’, ‘liminarity’ and ‘hybridism’ were notions imposed to me by the fieldwork since the very start and notions of ‘translating traditions’ and ‘culture of translation’ were already approached and discussed in more recent papers.83 Ultimately, my main statement is that nation building as a social identity in the process should be approached as a broad brokerage process in which translation mechanisms (what is tradition, what they stand for and which of them) are themselves at stake. This is more relevant and complex if one considers that Timor-Leste was a platform of an earliest ‘clash of civilizations’84and that the several cultures in Timor-Leste were not isolated but in an historical permanent ‘translation in a continuous world’ to use the words of T. Ingold in 1994 connecting, as a consequence, language, territory, social relations and cultural ideologies in a kind of a “prismatic cultural configuration”. Meaning that the construction of cultural relativities (translations among cultures through the construction of ‘otherings’), either in an ethno-linguistic, or in a social and in a strict cultural sense, was a constant, although its processes and consequences are yet to be tackled.85
6Supported by this framework, this short paper builds on the assumption (not discussed here) that nation building may, and perhaps must, be defined as a translation in crisis process and, as a consequence, the more manifest crisis (eventually violent) on that process may, and perhaps must, be understood as a translation experience. Bearing in mind my other writings on the 2005-2007 crisis in Timor-Leste, I will argue that this crisis was a translation in which the several pasts became present turning the discussion of the ‘Anthropological Structures’ or ‘Structures of Difference’ necessary by which Timor-Leste cultures constructed the various ‘others’ which they have to come to terms with in an ‘Independence time’ turning them into a generalized ‘We’. Identity building through hierarchical and usually conflicting images of the others (‘othering’) will be the guiding process for sketching out the lexic thesaurus, and thus the universe of meanings, upon which each ‘othering’ draws on.
2-The Crisis of 2006: The ‘first ritual war’ after independence
7Throughout 2006, there was a discussion about the causes of the crisis and, as I put it in June 2006,86 it seemed that we could summarize those causes into five areas, by this time:
A political-military issue: the 591 petitioners.
A socio-cultural issue: the discrimination claimed by the soldiers because of being from the West and with the emergence of gangs on April 28, also a generational issue (in which unemployment was an important issue).
A political-institutional issue: the problem between Alkatiri and Xanana as the centre of the disintegration of the State and, as a consequence, of the social situation.
The theory of the State taking over in a double register: a soft one as a constitutional coup of the State by Xanana Gusmão and the hard one, followed by the World Socialist Web Site, which links oil, Kristy Gusmão, Ramos Horta, John Howard, Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank
The result of a political policy in which the State was used as the extension of a political party (or, at least, parts of it), which has tried to implement a Tutelar Democracy or a Constitutional Dictatorship, and the use of the State for personal agendas of power.
8By the end of 2006, three dimensions seemed to be the most important: the political-institutional, the social-cultural and the geostrategic situation. Indeed, everything and everyone could be understood as promoting crisis as it is evident in the list compiled by Josh Trindade in 2006.
9When everything and everyone could be to blame for whatever, ‘Mimetic Violence’, as considered by Rene Girard is installed. This is a state of Cultural Crisis, of a social undifferentiating in which main cultural references just disappear: outsiders vs insiders; city and mountain; youngsters vs elders, State vs Church. The dual model in a segmented way, as a whole, is in crisis. This situation of dissolution of the system could be understandable, in a traditional way, as a part of a ritual, if the elders who represent the parts in conflict ritualize themselves the way out of the conflict. This means that even if the beginning of the turmoil had not been ritualized, the turmoil could be recognized as a ritual war–and not as the terrified alternative of the end of nation and culture–if the way out of it had been ritualized. The ‘first ritual war’ after independence has created its own way towards an understanding and resolution, as I had previously considered through a ‘Culture of Politics’ in which the ‘Politics of Culture’ was its centre.87 The ritualizing moments that particularly Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmão have implemented, with the delivering of weapons by Railos and the big meeting of the Katuas of several districts in Dili, were, indeed, the beginning of the end of the war.
Perceptions on Major Contributors to the Civil Crisis
1 | Lack of national identity as a unifying force |
2 | Unclear goals and objectives as a nation |
3 | Lack of understanding about East Timor's background in social, cultural, and political affairs from the development sector |
4 | Lack of statistical data and research |
5 | Discordant priorities between the Government and development sector and needs of the people |
6 | Elite minority of Diaspora and the " Mozambican Mafia " |
7 | Personal interests of Timorese Leaders |
8 | UNTAET administrations and unsuitability for East Timorese needs |
9 | Political parties cat and mouse games |
10 | Flaws in the May 2002 independence achievement |
11 | Improper use of human resources in the Government (including unsuitability of staff for roles) |
12 | Government operation as a whole |
13 | Flaws in Government policy |
14 | Lack of employment |
15 | Lack of access to quality education |
16 | Conflict between the Church and the Government |
17 | Conflict between the NGO sector and the Government |
18 | Lack of national moral and values |
19 | Portuguese language: a huge obstacle in developing the nation |
20 | Flaws in the creation of the first National Parliament |
21 | Ineffective and disorganized Law sector |
22 | Rivalry between PNTL and FFDTL |
23 | UN as a whole and donor countries (including the UN's lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity) |
24 | International community in East Timor (lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity) |
25 | Poor collaboration between Government and its institutions, the NGO sector and the UN |
26 | Local and International media publishing incorrect information |
Source: Trindade, Josh, E.T. Crisis Map.
10Thus, the 2006 Crisis was, a founding moment in which the identity issue was, indeed, at the center of the game. The main question was ‘what is it to be ‘Timorese’ without the Portuguese, the Indonesian or the UN ‘other’?’ Questioning ethnicities, questioning land property on the one hand; questioning sides taken in resistance to Portuguese and Indonesians, questioning languages on another or, finally, questioning the performance and balance of State institutions were no more than symptoms of the big problem of the Timorese identity and, as a consequence, the legitimacy of new ‘big men’, of new Liurais as Nation Translators. That is what the 2006 crisis was all about. In this sense, the 2006 crisis was an incredible evidence of a Nation trying to come to terms with itself by putting onto a lively stage a serious play about the several ‘othering’ 88(the construction about themselves as others). In fact, the core of this drama was the new anthropological structure (Us versus Them) of Timor-Leste as a Nation and, if I am not wrong, this Drama, as it was foundational of Timorese Modernity, will be put onto stage again in future times, unless the present government is able to perform the agenda’s Jump to Modernity in 5-10 years, which is doubtful.
3-The anthropological structures
11The Timorese ‘otherings’, the anthropological structures which present the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, were built as a consequence of Timor-Leste being the centre of a confluence of different cultural regions as well as a consequence of centuries of colonization. I will argue here that the cultural memory of all these anthropological structures are functioning on present times and that translation plays a central role in these processes by enhancing a plurality of meanings.
12Timor-Leste was (and still is) in between two cultural regions taken at large as Asia and the Pacific, in a more regional sense, as Indonesia and Melanesia and in a Timorese sense as Austronesian ethno-linguistic groups and Papuas ethno-linguistic groups. This “in betweeness” of Timor as a whole has already been referred to throughout history, since the classical analysis of Alfred Wallace on the Malay Archipelago in 1869, up to the present, considering it as an earlier ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in Geoffrey Gunn in 1999. Besides this “in betweeness”, China was extremely important in that particular region and, at a certain moment of history, perhaps even the Mongol empire.89 With the arrival of Europeans to the region as a long trend situation, Europe has become, in a way, the third cultural region to be taken into consideration in a generative narrative of present day in Timor-Leste. The capital town of a region or of a country often reveals the anthropological structure or the structure of difference of the hinterland, either a region or even the country as a whole. Arguments on this thesis have already been presented by me in articles focused on Porto (Portugal), on Manaus (Brazil), on Cluj-Napoca (Romania) and on Dili, being indeed that particular interest which first led me to Timor-Leste in 2000 because of my specialty as an Urban Anthropologist. The 2006 crisis, in a distant and large anthropological gaze, put Dili as a brokerage platform in which the three cultural regions, in a symbolic, yet quite real way (Lorosae/Firaku groups; Loromono/Kaladi groups and UN/Portugal/Australia) play their part trying to be translated into the future within the new narrative of the nation, which was felt by all as being in an important turning point.
13Although an anthropological history of ‘othering’ in Timor-Leste is needed in order to shed some light on the underground generative important meanings, which support the socio-ideological framework that is presently used, we may consider that Timor-Leste was influence by-or even colonized-at least five times with generative consequences in socio-cultural and political-institutional present framework,90 meaning that each colonization has created some particular ‘othering/s’ which are important.
1st othering (malay)
14‘Malae’ or ‘Malai’ (referring possibly to the Malay but meaning, at least presently, ‘foreigner’) is the name by which any foreigner is referred to in Timor-Leste. Ambiguously, once it could be synonym of Lord (even king), Mister or Bapa or could be just'foreigner’. The clan which considers itself to be the first in Timor-Leste, ‘Tutuala ratu’ also calls itself ‘Malai ratu’, meaning ‘Lord/king of the foreigners’ or ‘Lord/king of the lords/kings’. In fact, ‘malae’ is also the name given to Timorese people who have come ‘from the outside’, ‘from the sea’ in relation to the ‘ones who stayed’, the ‘ones from the land’ and also to ‘mestizos’ (in ‘malae-china’, ‘malae-zapão’, etc.). For instance, some ethnolinguistic groups have the name ‘malae’ as a surname and the Tétum group have considered themselves, at least in a certain period, as ‘malae’ or ‘malae metan’ (black foreigners)91 in relation to the Portuguese, who were ‘malae mutin’ (white foreigner). A possible hypothesis is that cultural memory concerning the earlier clash of cultures between the Asia and Pacific regions, Indonesia and Melanesia, Malays and Papuas still generates Resentful distinctions locally and nationally. We may only assert that this was the ‘first’ foreign influence or even colonization because it seems that it was the first to produce a ‘generalized other’, the ‘malae’ and by doing it, to produce a sense of identity.
'From the sea' | Malae as Malay vs. autochthonous | Malae as Malay vs. Papuan |
Tetum people were malae | Malae | Mestizo |
Lords, even kings | Malae as 'Mister' or 'Bapa' vs. Timorese | Any Foreigner |
2nd othering (Tétum-Belo)
15Before ‘Portuguese time’ as the Timorese refers to it, there was a Belo-Tétum influence or even colonization with its centre in Wehaliwehiku. The Tetum people from Viqueque and Luca refer to themselves as ‘people from the plain’ (tetuk means plain) in opposition to the ones from the mountain and it is possible that Tetum people used local classifiers (positive or at least neutral ones) for the mountain people in order to classify them but changed them into having a negative connotation. 'Firaku' (Macassai) and 'Kaladi' (Mambai) are the negative classifications for the ‘mountain people’, basically referring them as culturally retarded, uncivilized people. There is no negative classification for the Tétum people and both negative classifications relate to ‘mountain people’ and those classifications refer to the biggest ethnolinguistic groups, the hypothesis that it was Tétum people who created the classifications seem quite strong.
16If, firstly, the Timorese have built their own identity in relation to Malae, as the constructed other, secondly, the Tetum-belo, the Timorese identity was dichotomized and, in a way, inverted, once Firaku and Kaladi, indistintively autoctonous or not, were turned into the ‘other’.
From the hun | Mountain people | Firaku and kaladi as Papuan vs. Austronesians |
Indigenous nouns | Firaku and Kaladi | Firaku and Kaladi vs. Tetum as civilized. |
People, not Liurais | Tetum were Lords, even kings | Tetum people were'malae' |
3rd othering (Portuguese)
17Differences between kingships were either used by the Portuguese and used the Portuguese rulers or Portuguese order to gain power. Firaku and Kaladi classifiers in the cultural memory became Portuguese classifiers, derived from Portuguese expressions (‘Vira-Cu’ – ‘turning the back’ and ‘Calado’ – ‘quite’) which translated to Tetum became Firaku and Kaladi. This story is completely unconvincing as both words almost certainly existed before Portuguese time92. Firaku is a Makassai word (Makassai is a Papua language) meaning ‘we camrades’, ‘we, the friends’ and Kaladi is probably a corruption of keladi, a Malay word (meaning ‘taro’ or ‘yam’, a tropical plant known by its corm), a better hypothesis is that translation happened the other way around. Indeed, local classifiers were translated to Portuguese, identifying Portuguese expressions with negative connotations which have already been asserted to those particular people. It seems that the Portuguese and Tetum people have created a colonial ‘othering’ working consensus and if it is true that there is no evidence of a war pattern between the East and the West, it is also true that the Portuguese rulers in the ‘Pacification War’ used Eastern people against the Western revolution led by D. Boaventura.
18The Portuguese ‘othering’ was in the origin of another important dichotomy which superposed the one that differentiates between Firaku and Kaladi: the one that discriminates between Maubere and Assimilado. Maubere was a common name (and in the myths of the Mambai region, in the Western part, is the name of the first man, Bibere being the name of the first woman). After the 1930s Colonial Act, two categories of persons were formed: the Indigenous and the Assimilados (those with Portuguese nationality). In Timor-Leste, this discrimination was understood as a distinction between Maubere and Assimilado, Maubere becoming the term to designate the ignorant, illiterate, dispossessed and peasant indigenous, up to a certain point combining the earliest distinction between Firaku and Kaladi in one of its meanings, the one that considers both as mountain people. The epithet ‘Maubere People’, coined by Ramos Horta after 1974,93 turned the page on the Portuguese ‘othering’, reversing the universe of meaning from a negative to a completely positive one.
There was a Young Brother who left *. Timorese as 'maubere'. | Timor is 'raiklaran'. Portugal was Timorese | Tetum people were 'malae metan' |
Portuguese as the returnee young brother | Maubere and Assimilado | Portuguese were/are 'malae mutin' |
Outside brothers | Timorese as 'assimilado'. Portuguese as lords, even kings | Just malae |
* There are several versions assumed by different east Timorese cultures (although many times kept in secrecy) of an apparently common story. The story refers that a young brother left Timor (the island) and is expected to return or returned already as other (some Timorese who arrived by see, as well as the Portuguese and, even nowadays, the UN and other international cooperation professionals were believed to be the returned'young brother'.)
4th othering (Indonesia)
19Within the resistance, although the idea of ‘From taci-feto to tacimane, from Lorosae to Loromono, One only People, One only Nation’ was constantly repeated, Loromono was synonymous to many Timorese as the ‘great door of invasion’ and of ‘collaborationism’ and, on the contrary, Lorosae was the same as ‘real warriors’ and ‘resistants’. Simultaneously, and in contradiction with this quite disseminated background assumption, the expression used from the resistant nation, ‘Maubere People’, coined by Ramos Horta, had its origin in Loromono (Aileu, Ermera and Maubisse), creating a renovation of the dichotomy Firaku-Kaladi, now understandable as Firaku-Maubere, which was connected in a rather complex way with Democracy vs Communism (Mauberism). Nevertheless, this dichotomy was partly hidden because ‘Maubere’ had been turned into a national emblem (‘Maubere People’) during the struggle facing a common enemy, and because Aileu was, in many traditional narratives, the Centre-of-the-Earth (Rai-Klaran) or the belly of the crocodile, and for others, it was even the origin of the world (hun) giving a certain legitimacy to a nationalist narrative. However, it was not before CNRM turned to CNRT, changing the ‘Maubere’ for ‘Timorese’, that all the various Timorese parties accepted belonging to that particular structure.
20Although Benedict Anderson has suggested that the Indonesians were not ever capable of imagining Timorese as Indonesians, the Indonesians as a people have never been the “Other” to the Timorese. Even the Indonesian militaries were viewed in an ambiguous way; at least some of them understood the Timorese struggle. So, although Timorese differentiated themselves from the Indonesians, there is a continuation of wor (l) ds between them, expressed in several different ways (commonalities in language, in origin, in traditions, in the diaspora and counter-diaspora, etc).
First man, old brother | Firaku and Kaladi | Just kaladi |
From the hun | Maubere and collaborationists | Nationalism'resistants' |
Maubere as opposite to Malae | Maubere as opposite to Firaku | Mauberism as communism |
5th othering (UN)
21Throughout the UNTAET period, all the complexities of the Timorese past were oversimplified as the struggle of the Maubere People against the Indonesians and, although there was the knowledge of the divisions within the Timorese, those divisions were as a whole basically related to independence or autonomy, which in fact were as old as the political parties themselves and that the referendum and independence itself should put an end to those problems. Presumably because the Creole elite was the main interface but also because this period was understood by the Timorese as a ‘transitional’ period in a large ritual of coming to terms with themselves after a long history of colonization’s, the past was hidden from the foreigners. The majority of the co-operants (‘expats’), even when they have been there for some years, have never heard about lorosae and loromono. Resistance differendos, outsiders (returnees) versus the ones who stayed, as well as gender divisions, were much more visible. The Creole elite had difficulties (and perhaps still have) understanding the possibilities enhanced by cultural memory for the producing of pasts and have created the idea that Timor-Leste was on its way to Modernity, a well-accepted idea by the UN as well as by Portugal and Australia. The common Timorese citizen had an idea about the problems, but although they were too involved, they knew that the translation of the past has created an open field of possibilities. I believe that most of them did not know exactly that something would happen, but they thought it might! Dionisio Babo Soares was one of those inside voices, at least, through his PhD. On the side of the ‘malae’ people there were just four or five voices (Durand, Fox, Hohe, Silva and Seixas.) claiming that those divisions were there and that they should be tackled.
22As Soares wrote, the trunk of nationalism was already diverse in its branches and had several tips and all this diversity was a challenge in terms of the unity of the nation. Kelly Cristiane da Silva focused part of her research on the ‘outsiders’ (returnees) -‘insiders’ (the ones who stayed) dichotomy and its pertinence on the transitional period.
Insiders: resistants or just survivors | Insiders divided into Firaku and Kaladi | Outsiders: opportunists or politicians |
Insiders as nationalists | The ones 'from outside'' and the ones 'from inside' | Outsiders as cultural mestizos |
Insiders as Maubere | Maubere people and the collaborationism/resistance question | Outsiders as just malae |
6th ‘Timorization’ as “indigenation”
23As Rui Feijó wrote in 2006, the political democratic system was implemented in Timor-Leste without a proper transitional period and with an emphasis in the qualitative variables (gender issues for instance), when transition and stability of the system should have been the main focus.94 Although I generally agree with this perspective, my main argument is that the problem was more cultural than political and after independence or restauration of independence (May 20, 2002) the time that followed was one of the ‘returning of rituals’, meaning that, finally, the Timorese had to come to terms with themselves and with all their past identities and ‘otherings’. If not ‘Malae’, ‘Firaku’ or ‘Kaladi’, and also not ‘Portuguese’ (we may even add nor Indonesian)... and not even ‘Maubere,’ what were they? This was the main cultural question in 2003 and 2004 when ‘Kafir’ (as Kaladi + FIRaku, meaning rai-klaran or centre-of-the-earth and raiklaran or world) was tried in a tentative way as an answer, although that was in itself no more than a symptom of the problem.95 Indeed there was no more than divisions in a way that all the ‘Otherings’ were turning very difficult, if not even impossible at least on the crisis period, any common identity The several identities and ‘otherings’ of the several pasts (including the plural interpretation of them) have created a world of divisions: old brother and young brother; black brother and white brother; from the sea and from the land; from the mountain and from the plain; from ulun (head) and ikun (tale); Firaku and Kaladi; Maubere and Firaku; Maubere and Malae; Mestizos and Mauberes; insiders and outsiders; Tetum and Portuguese languages; resistant and collaborationists, FDTL and PNTL, Portuguese and Indonesians... In this sense, ‘Timorization’, as the necessary quicker transitional period demanded by the Timoreses, turned into an ‘indigenation’ 96process in which the diversity of identities were put at stake by a diversity of agents into a big arena of social and symbolic (un) definitions.
24There is enough evidence on problems which dealt with all those divisions: a) in the cantonment of FALINTIL’s quarter in 1999/2000; b) in the first Batallion of FDTL because of the large number of recruitment from Lorosae in 2001; c) in 2002, in the debate on Timorese Constitutional Law about the expression ‘Maubere People’ it was stated: “Maubere people. Section 11.1. The term Maubere does not represent all East Timorese but it is a concept that only represents certain parts of East Timor. The implication is that it will encourage tribal conflicts, “firaku and kaladi”; d) in December 2003, when 27 soldiers from FDTL were demobilized and it was referred that another 60 would also be in January. In fact in January 2004, 42 were demobilized and they claimed to be discriminatedted against for being Kaladi by their Firaku officials; e) in March 2004 there was an important incident in Los Palos with some elements of FDTL and afterwards the commandant of FDTL in Lautem eventually used the term Firaku as to justify the action taken. President Xanana went to Los Palos, an inquiry commission was created and, eventually, because of that situation, FDTL moved to Baucau.
25These are just some of the main examples concerning divisions. We should add the many localized situations since 1999 concerning Firaku-Kaladi–Resistants vs Collaborationists, problems which occurred in Dili (referred to by Babo Soares in his PhD in 2003); the various problems at the border with Indonesia as well as with the return of the refugees; the problems with Veterans; the problem with the name of the country itself, from Timor Lorosae to Timor-Leste, etc.
4-Crisis as translation
26My main argument on this short text is that culture is a hidden and not considered variable in the case of Timor-Leste transition and, probably, in many post-colonial and post-war societies. Considering that there were just around 40 countries after the Second World War and that at the beginning of the 21st century the planet has around 200 countries, post-colonial (and, in several cases, post-war) societies representing around 80% of the countries in the planet.
27The scattering of identities created through the process of coming to terms with the several pasts and its ‘otherings’ creates in those societies a symbolic, social and political arena in which ttranslation is, I believe, a key word. Translating the multiple pasts is the only way to build a future in these societies and the challenge of understanding those processes is not only crucial in order to comprehendd of those societies and cultures, but also to build competences and capacities in the field of Cooperation and Development, or in another way, in Anthropology of Development and in Anthropology in Development.
28Focusing on translations means that rather than looking for what differentiates one culture from another (construction of singularities) or what is common to several cultures (construction of similarities), it is worth looking for translations (construction of relativities). In the case of Timor-Leste, the crisis of 2005-2007 might be understood as a revelation of the translation processes. The crisis in translation to be seen between 1999 and 2004 was at the origin of the crisis as translation and cultural translation of traditions is at the core of nation building in Timor-Leste.
Notes de bas de page
64 cf. for instance Said (E.) 1978, Orientalism; Clifford (J.) 1989, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century.
65 Geertz (C.) 1989, A Interpretação das Culturas; Clifford (J.) and Marcus (G.E.) (Eds) 1986, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography
66 Hall (S.) 2003, Da Diáspora. Identidades e Mediações Culturais.
67 Marcus (G.E.) 1995, Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited Ethnography.
68 Clifford (J.) 1992 and 1997, op. cit.
69 Pratt (M.L.) 1992, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation.
70 Appadurai (A.) 2004, Dimensões Culturais da globalização. A Modernidade sem Peias.
71 Hall (S.) 2003, op. cit.
72 Bhabha (H.) 1994, The Location of Culture.
73 Hannerz (U.) 1996, Transnational Connections, Culture, People, Places.
74 Lefebvre (H.), 1974/1991, The Production of Space.
75 Foucault (M.) 1986, “Of Other Spaces”.
76 Del Valle (T.) 1997, Andamios para una Nueva Ciudad. Lecturas desde la Antropología.
77 Featherstone (M.) 1999, Cultura Global: Introdução.
78 Cannevacci (M.) 1996, Sincretismos. Uma Exploração das Hibridações Culturais.
79 Hannerz (U.) 1996, op. cit.
80 Ribeiro (A.S.) 2005, “A Tradução como Metáfora da Contemporaneidade. Pós-Colonialismo, Fronteiras e Identidades”.
81 Ingold (T.) 1994, “The Art of Translation in a Continuous World”
82 Asad (T.) 1986, “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Anthropology”; Jordan (S.A.) 2002, “Ethnographic Encounters: The Processes of Cultural Translation”
83 Seixas (P.C.) 2001, “Dili: O Limiar Pós-Colonial”; 2006, Desafios à Construção da Nação em Timor-Leste. Traduzir Tradições em Situação Pós-Colonial; 2007a “Dualismo, Violência Mimética e Cultura da Tradução”; 2007b, “Timor-Leste. A Tradução como Cultura”.
84 Gunn (G.) 1999, Timor Loro Sae 500 Anos.
85 To understand some of the translation mechanisms which were put into practice over time in Timor-Leste cultures is, in fact, the main aim of the research project this paper refers to: ‘Translating Cultures, Culture of Translation: Negotiation as Core Heritage in Timor-Leste’. Despite the efforts of the research team, I believe that only a deep research into the oral history of the clans will bring some light into the problematic nature of intercultural communication in Timor-Leste over time.
86 Seixas (P.) 2006d, A Difícil Construção da Nação e do Estado Timorenses.
87 Seixas (P.) 2006a, “A Primeira Guerra Pós-Colonial. Entrevista feita por Adelino Gomes”; 2006b “Os Acontecimentos de Timor Lorosae”; 2006c, “Desafios à Construção da Nação em Timor-Leste”.
88 ‘Othering’ is a term coined by Gayatri Spivak for the process by which imperial discourse creates its ‘others’ and creates its own Imperial identity though this process (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1998, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies)
89 Durand (F.) 2006, Timor: 1250-2005.750 ans de cartographie et de voyages.
90 The hypothesis briefely referred to here was elaborated on firstly in a quite extended article in which all these several distinctions were presented and published in 2005, long before the 2006 crisis. See Seixas (P.) 2005, “Firaku e Kaladi: Etnicidades prevalentes nas Imaginações Unitárias em Timor-Leste” & 2006, Timor-Leste: Viagens, Transições, Mediações.
91 This reference is made by Vaquinhas (José dos Santos) 1885 in “Timor” (p. 63): “the Beale and Okusse people think of themselves as superior to all the others in the island and only inferiors in relation to the Portuguese and, for this reason, they call themselves malai-meta, calling the Portuguese or foreigners, malai-mute”
92 I argued extensively in another article (Seixas, 2005, op. cit.) on the existence of the Firaku and Kaladi words, and probably at least some of its universe of meanings, before Portuguese time.
93 Carrascalão (M.Â.) 2002, Timor. Os Anos da Resistência.
94 Feijó (R.G.) 2006, Timor. Paisagem Tropical com Gente Dentro.
95 Seixas (P.) 2006f, “De Maubere a Kafir e Mais Além. O Meio da Terra em Movimento”.
96 Appadurai (A.) 2004, op. cit.
Auteur
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Paulo Castro Seixas
Anthropologist, Associate professor–Fernando Pessoa University, Porto, Portugal (pseixas@ufp.edu.pt), Project PTDC/ANT/81065/2006 (Fundação Para a Ciência e a Tecnologia)
Paulo Castro Seixas has a master in Sociology and a PhD in Anthropology. Associate Professor at Fernando Pessoa University since 2004, he is coordinator of the Cultural Studies Programs and of Humanitarian Action, Cooperation and Development Master. Researcher in projects funded by World Bank, EU and Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, he is author/co-author of 6 books and organizer of other 5. He is also author and Director of six anthropological documentaries. His main interests are Transnational Urban studies and Timor-Leste Anthropology. Books on Timor-Leste: Timor-Leste. Viagens, Transições, Mediações, Porto, Univ. Fernando Pessoa Ed., 2006; Seixas, Paulo Castro & Engelenhoven, Aone (orgs) Diversidade Cultural na Construção do Estado e da Nação em Timor-Leste, Porto, Univ. Fernando Pessoa Ed., 2006. Contact: pseixas@ufp.edu.pt
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