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The key question for many anthropologists and historians today is not whether to cross the boundary between their disciplines, but whether the idea of a disciplinary boundary should be sustained. Reinterpreting the dynamic interplay between archive and field, these essays propose a method for mutually productive crossings between historical and ethnographic research. It engages critically with the colonial pasts of indigenous societies and examines how fieldwork and archival studies together lead to fruitful insights into the making of different colonial historicities. Timor-Leste’s unusually long and in some ways unique colonial history is explored as a compelling case for these crossings.
“Penned by anthropologists and historians alike, this collection of essays showcases the mutual enrichment of field and archival research for the understanding of colonial dynamics…The volume opens up some interesting ways to push the dialogue further and as such it is warmly recommended.” • Social Anthropology
“Crossing Histories and Ethnographies is a fascinating read for those looking for inspiration on how to apply an interdisciplinary approach in their historical or anthropological research. The book is primarily intended for Timor-Leste experts, who will enjoy the fresh empirical material and original perspectives on the country’s past and present.” • Internation Network for Theory of History
“This is an important book, a valuable book, and in many ways, a path-setting book that brings together an impressive group of contemporary social analysts -- from both a historical and anthropological perspective – in a focused consideration of Timor-Leste.” • James J. Fox, The Australian National University
“The volume offers a strong and interesting set of studies; it is coherent and of value to the ethnography and anthropology of eastern Indonesia specifically and southeast Asian and Oceanic anthropology in general. The introduction offers an excellent overview of the historical turn in anthropology… The dialogue of practice and method gives the book wider interest for all those concerned with historical anthropology, irrespective of the region in which they work.”• Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
Ricardo Roque is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and currently an Honorary Associate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney. He works on the history and anthropology of human sciences, colonialism, and cross-cultural contact in the Portuguese-speaking world. He has published extensively on the colonial history of Timor-Leste.
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Crossing Histories and Ethnographies
Ricardo Roque and Elizabeth G. Traube
PART I: FOLLOWING STORIES
Chapter 1. Outside In: Mambai Expectations of Returning Outsiders
Elizabeth G. Traube
Chapter 2. The Enigmas of Timorese History and Manipulations of Mythical Narratives by Local Societies: The Example of Bunaq-Language Populations
Claudine Friedberg
Chapter 3. The Death of Arbiru: Colonial Mythic Praxis and the Apotheosis of Officer Duarte
Ricardo Roque
Chapter 4. Pacification and Rebellion in the Highlands of Portuguese Timor
Judith Bovensiepen
PART II: FOLLOWING OBJECTS
Chapter 5. Catholic Luliks or Timorese Relics? Missionary Anthropology, Destruction and Self-Destruction (ca. 1910–1974)
Frederico Delgado Rosa
Chapter 6. Funerary Posts and Christian Crosses: Fataluku Cohabitations with Catholic Missionaries after World War II
Susana de Matos Viegas and Rui Graça Feijó
Chapter 7. The Stones of Afaloicai: Colonial Archaeology and the Authority of Ancient Objects
Ricardo Roque and Lúcio Sousa
PART III: FOLLOWING CULTURES THROUGH ARCHIVES
Chapter 8. Contesting Colonialisms, Contesting Stories: Early Intrusion in East Timor through Portuguese and Dutch Eyes
Hans Hägerdal
Chapter 9. Reading against the Grain: Ethnography, Commercial Agriculture, and the Colonial Archive of East Timor
Andrew McWilliam and Chris J. Shepherd
Chapter 10. Archival Records and Ethnographic Inquiries in Viqueque
David Hicks
Chapter 11. The Barlake War: Marriage Exchanges, Colonial Fantasies, and the Production of East Timorese People in 1970s Dili
Kelly Silva
Afterword: Glimpses of an Ethnohistory of Timor
James J. Fox
Index