Genealogies of Human Rights Ideas in Timor-Leste: “Kultura”, Modernity, and Resistance

Marisa Ramos Gonçalves

doi:10.30578/nomadas.n53a3

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to explore East Timorese understandings of human rights and to trace the historical and societal dynamics of construing ideas and behaviours concerning rights. This will be done by looking into local genealogies of rights concepts and the dialogue established between the 'globalised script of human rights' and East Timorese knowledges of rights. Based on group interviews with three different generations, this research concludes that certain rights are understood as the product of East Timorese people's agency set in a historical and social context, rather than the passive reception and adoption of the human rights script from international institutions.

Highlights

In Timor-Leste, a country in Southeast Asia which regained independence in 2002, people’s life experiences are interwoven with distinct historical times and social contexts
The objective of this paper is to explore East Timorese understandings of human rights and to trace the historical and societal dynamics of construing ideas and behaviours concerning rights
It came the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops and the UN Security Council established UNTAET –United Nations Transitional

Summary

Introduction

In Timor-Leste, a country in Southeast Asia which regained independence in 2002, people’s life experiences are interwoven with distinct historical times and social contexts. They are, the result of creative transformations of East Timorese law and justice complexes through their interaction with colonial administrative practices (Silva, 2016; Gonçalves and Meneses, 2019) This demonstrates the controversial nature of defining what is traditional and what is modern, the autochthonous or foreign in societies like Timor-Leste. This “appropriation” of local practices of governance and justice by modern state institutions serves the purpose of introducing agendas for the promotion of human rights ethics in the country (Gonçalves and Meneses, 2019: 77-79; Silva, 2014: 136-137) It should be noted, though, that this top-down process of imposing modern state structures was not without conflict and heavy consequences for the East Timorese, as the 2006 conflict exposed the inability of these institutions to manage the social and economic tensions underlying the project of nation building (Trindade, 2008). In the group interviews the theme of self-determination as a right to governing one’s land and resources united all the age groups, both genders and all geographical areas (Gonçalves, 2016: 162-181)

Conclusion

19. Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination