Nation, Transnation, Diaspora: Locating East Timorese Long‑ distance Nationalism

Abstract

This article is based on ethnographic research with the East Timcrese community in Sydney, Austraiia, undertaken between 1998 and 2002. It considers the transnational dimensions to their practices of iong-distanoe nationaiism. Moving beyond a simpie homeland to refugee trajectory, the author takes the position that transnational oonnections and infiuenoes must be seen to be both located (that is, consumed and experienoed in place) and interconnected beyond the bounds of the group and its homeland. The article aims to map out some of the imaginative resouroes within the diasporio public sphere • which have contributed to the coilective imagination within the East Timorese community, in addition to mapping out the cultural products and symbolic production of the East Timorese public sphere, the article explores both the intercommunai and transnationai iinks entailed therein, and the impiications of these on the shape of East Timorese identity. This article explores the complex transnational dimensions and trajectories of East Timorese long-distance nationalism (Anderson 1998, p. 73)' and reflects on the implications of interconnections with outside groups and discourses. Based on four years of research with the East Timorese exile community in Sydney between 1998 and 2002 I begin by mapping some ofthe imaginative resources of long-distance nationalism which have contributed to the collective imagination of the East Timorese community in the diaspora to describe some of the primary content of what Appadurai (1996, pp. 21-22) and Werbner (1998) have called the diasporic public sphere.^ In addition to mapping the cultural products and symbolic production ofthe East Timorese