Transitional environmentality – Understanding uncertainty at the junctures of eco-logical production in Timor-Leste

Abstract

Environmentality has proven an enduring framework for interrogating issues around environmental behaviours and discourse as a means of subject governance and citizen-making. However, its application often insufficiently reflects the temporal nuances of environmental (eco) logics as transient, emergent and differentiated amongst ‘citizens’. This is particularly the case in post-conflict zones of transition where the fluidity, friction and fractural nature of socio-political relations between state and subject are often overlooked. By examining community experiences in the establishment of Timor-Leste’s first national park, this article highlights the inadequate attention directed towards addressing these concerns. It proposes ‘transitional’ environmentality as a novel framework that first, better reflects the ever-transient nature of environmental behaviour and regulation; and second, recognizes the prevalence for this in post-conflict landscapes. Transitional environmentality emphasizes the temporal fragility of environmental authority structures and its potential for renegotiation of resource management between the frictions of the state and the subjects it seeks to make.