Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
12 - Gathering the Dead, Imagining the State?: Examining the Work of Commissions for the Recovery of Human Remains
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of ‘commissions’ for the recovery of human remains that have proliferated across Timor-Leste. I argue that the commissions’ practices constitute forms of ‘nonstate governmentality’ (de Cesari 2010, 625) that take the government's valorisation programme in unexpected directions. By working to exhume, identify, and categorise the dead the commissions are, to some extent, contributing to the state's goal of dignifying martyrs. At the same time, they are potentially enlarging the definition of martyrdom beyond the state's narrow interpretation. Ultimately, the commissions bring to light the nation's painful history and remind the state of its responsibility to dignify all the nation's martyrs.
Keywords: human remains, exhumation, resistance networks, nonstate governmentality, martyrdom, dignification
Dealing with thousands of ‘corpses out of place’ (Warren 1993, 31), which remain scattered across the landscape, remains an urgent preoccupation in post-conflict Timor-Leste. While families around the country are organising ad hoc expeditions to retrieve the remains of deceased relatives from shallow bush graves, more organised initiatives are being undertaken by ‘commissions’ for the recovery of human remains (Komisaun Rekoilamentu Restu Mortais). These self-described commissions have proliferated across Timor-Leste over the last few years at the scale of municipality, posto (administrative post), and suku (village). They tend to be led by individuals who were once prominent figures in the armed or clandestine resistance against the Indonesian occupation. They are often connected to, and sometimes a formal part of, veterans’ associations or groups that promote the interests of former Resistance members through activities such as small business and microfinance (see Roll in this collection.) A key aspect of the commissions’ work is searching for, and exhuming, the human remains of those had been involved in the Resistance. Once recovered, remains are stored in ossuaries or temporary protective houses (uma mahon) to await burial in one of the state's Garden of Heroes cemeteries.
While an increasing amount of scholarly attention is being paid to familyled practices of recovering, reburying, caring for, and honouring the dead in the aftermath of the occupation (Bovensiepen 2018; Viegas and Feijo 2017; Grenfell 2012; McWilliam 2008, 2011) and the state's memorialisation priorities (Leach 2008; Arthur 2019), little attention has been paid to the commissions.
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- Information
- The Dead as Ancestors, Martyrs, and Heroes in Timor-Leste , pp. 283 - 304Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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