21 research outputs found
Osterhoudt, Sarah R. 2017. Vanilla landscapes: meaning, memory, and the cultivation of place in Madagascar. Reviewed by Laura S. Meitzner Yoder
No full textColonial Land Legacies in the Portuguese-Speaking World
No full textColonial Land Legacies in the Portuguese-Speaking World presents a comparative exploration of the enduring impacts of Portuguese colonial land governance in Portugal and across five former Portuguese colonies: Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Flores, and Portuguese Timor. Through ethnographic, historical, and legal analyses, the book investigates how colonial land policies and interventions were not simply implemented and forgotten but have shaped contemporary land access, governance, and socio-economic structures in profound ways. Portuguese colonialism was shaped by shifting political and economic priorities. From trading routes to plantation economies and extractive industries, land became central to Portuguese colonial interests. Colonial Land Legacies in the Portuguese-Speaking World investigates the bureaucratic mechanisms employed by Portuguese authorities to regulate land, highlighting how these systems were frequently manipulated by elites to consolidate power and control over resources. It explores Indigenous-settler entanglements, illustrating how colonial land policies interacted with local governance systems, leading to contested and hybrid forms of land control shaped by both resistance and adaptation. Finally, it focuses on the global capitalist motivations driving land policies, particularly the use of large-scale concessions for plantations, and how these practices continue to shape contemporary land ownership and economic inequalities in post-colonial contexts. Colonial Land Legacies in the Portuguese-Speaking World is a critical and comparative analysis of colonial land governance and its afterlives. It highlights how these legacies continue to shape contemporary struggles over land, making it essential to address them in the pursuit of more equitable land governance. Through its case studies, the book contributes to broader discussions on the relationships between land, power, and colonialism, offering insights into the ongoing challenges of land policy and practice in post-colonial contexts
The development eraser: fantastical schemes, aspirational distractions and high modern mega-events in the Oecusse enclave, Timor-Leste
No full textThe array of challenges to durably improving rural peoples' lives in remote regions is so daunting that it can be tempting to erase what is there, and to seek a blank slate. This tension is being played out in the OecusseAmbeno enclave of Timor-Leste, a region long familiar with geographic and political isolation. Residents now encounter a new iteration of their unique status: rapid declaration of their region as a special economic zone (ZEESM), with a new regional governance structure and an appointed leadership. The advent of this new zone is meant to catapult Oecusse from its current state of chronic infrastructure and basic development challenges to a booming economic center and a fount of national income in short order. Early emphasis is placed on rapid, major coastal infrastructure construction deemed necessary for the November 2015 commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Portuguese arrival, with the hallmarks associated with high modernism and mega-event preparation worldwide: spatial re-ordering and regulation; a strong orientation to external inputs, resources, and services; and centralized control of rapid infrastructure change. This article investigates the ideological underpinnings of these plans, and explores the irony of how the proposals and their governance arrangement are a disjuncture with Oecusse as a historically important place. It concludes with observations on this project's place in the national development context, and the likely costs and impacts of development for the Oecusse population. Risks include further political and economic marginalization of the mountain-dwelling and rural population, local residents' loss of productive agricultural land and access to water, reduced protection through administrative exclusion from national political structures, and the opportunity costs of misdevelopment's aspirational distractions.
Key words: Special Economic Zone; high modernism; mega-event; Timor-Leste; Oecusse Ambeno; economic developmen
Piloting the experimental ZEESM megaproject: Performing the future in the Oecusse-Ambeno enclave
No full textKammen, Douglas. Three centuries of conflict in East Timor. xv, 231 pp., tables, figs, illus., bibliogr. London, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2015. £51.50 (cloth)
No full textPolitical ecologies of wood and wax: sandalwood and beeswax as symbols and shapers of customary authority in the Oecusse enclave, Timor
No full textThe enclave of Oecusse-Ambeno, Timor Leste, was formed in part through struggles over controlling trade in sandalwood and beeswax, two forest products that continue to influence political and ritual allegiances, and the political history of Oecusse. These products are interwoven with the region's contacts with outsiders, influencing local political hierarchies and roles of kings, village heads, and ritual authorities. While wood and wax are recognized to be of Timorese origin, local myths posit that their use and value was unrecognized before the arrival of Chinese traders and Portuguese missionaries. Several narratives of the origins of trade in sandalwood, and the kings' annual beeswax candle tributes, illustrate the enduring connections among local authorities, forest resource control, religious symbolism, and ritual obligations surrounding harvests of sandalwood and beeswax. Customary practices contribute to forest conservation through local protection of beeswax-producing forests, and by circumscribing the harvest. While both beehives and sandalwood impede intensive agricultural land uses, farmers welcome beeswax as a profitable product that supports ritual. But they resent sandalwood's growth in their fields since it involves more regulation and increased labor requirements. The two products' different ecologies of disturbance and incidence contributed over time to distinct ownership norms and forms of control by customary authorities. This is the "political ecology of wood and wax" in Oecusse.
Key words: Oecusse, Timor Leste/East Timor, sandalwood, beeswax, customary authority, colonialism
A Long Time Gone: Post-conflict Rural Property Restitution under Customary Law
No full textMass displacement of people due to violence poses a unique set of challenges for property restitution when people return to their homes after a long absence. This is particularly evident in rural areas where the dominant form of land holding is customary tenure. Violence-induced displacement, unlike voluntary migration, challenges both customary and public legaladministrative structures. The lack of written documentation of customary holdings and the importance of the support of community leaders means that incorporating returnees back into a community can be easier for those who choose to return, while reclaiming property without physical return is nearly impossible. This article seeks to make three contributions: 1) to note the diversity of return processes after long displacements in terms of timing and demographics; 2) to demonstrate that the nature of the claims people can make on customary tenure systems is at odds with international legal norms on property restitution after displacement; and 3) to introduce a set of observations and questions on how conflict can change customary law. The article is based on fieldwork conducted in Uganda, Liberia and Timor-Leste, all countries with extended displacement
