Exile and Return Among the East Timorese / / Amanda Wise.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package Complete Collection
• VerfasserIn: Wise, Amanda,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2011]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Contemporary Ethnography
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) :; 18 illus.

East Timor, the world's newest nation, finally gained its independence in 2002, following half a millennium of Portuguese rule and 24 years of Indonesian occupation. That occupation produced a refugee diaspora spread between Portugal and Australia that has been integral in advancing East Timor's cause abroad. Because East Timorese in the diaspora identified strongly as exiles and invested so much in pursuing East Timor's independence, the homeland's liberation has complicated the very basis on which many have "imagined" themselves since fleeing to Australia.Wise interrogates the space after exile for members of the East Timorese diaspora in Australia, in dialogue with key debates on diasporic identities within cultural studies, contemporary anthropology, and cultural geography. Drawing on innovative ethnographic research, explores questions of shifting identity and home, trauma and embodiment, belonging and return among the East Timorese abroad at this critical juncture in their lives. The book asks what forms of cultural identity emerge among politically active refugee diasporas, what happens to such groups when the dream of homeland is fulfilled, and how they renegotiate a sense of home after exile.The lived experience of Timorese in Australia and former refugees who have returned to East Timor is brought to life through their eloquent and often moving firsthand narratives, which the author has used liberally throughout the book, vividly presenting them alongside images and analysis of their role in the political struggle.Providing unique insights into cultural identities in the transition from exile to diaspora in a post-refugee group, is essential reading for anyone interested in questions of home and identity among diasporic, transnational, and refugee communities.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: "We can't hang Xanana there!" On the Politics of Representing Community -- Chapter 1 East Timor: A History of the Present -- Chapter 2 Leaving the Crocodile: The East Timorese Community in Sydney -- Chapter 3 Nation, Transnation, Diaspora: Locating East Timorese Long Distance Nationalism -- Chapter 4 Embodying Exile: Embodied Memory and the Role of Trauma, Affect, Politics, and Religion in the Formation of Identities in Exile -- Chapter 5 Locating East Timoreseness in Australia: Layers of Hybridity, Anchored and Enmeshed -- Chapter 6 From Exile to Diaspora? On Identity, Belonging, and the (Im)Possibility of Return Home -- Chapter 7 Conclusion: Independence Day: Looking to the Future -- Afterword: January 2005 -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments