Coping with “traditions”: The analysis of East-Timorese nation building from the perspective of a certain anthropology made in Brazi

The purpose of this essay is twofold. Firstly, we explore to what extent certain practices perceived as traditional in urban East Timor may be associated with different ways of negotiating individual and collective identities while un- covering dilemmas pertaining to nation building and state formation. To this effect, we take into account specific variations of current marriage negotia- tion practices in Dili, considering their structural role in forging local social- ity. Second, we consider the extent to which our specific focus derives from our background, which, among other influences, was built around our dia- logue with specific anthropological lines of analysis in Brazil 1 . One of these analytical traditions is related to interethnic friction and the place of indig- enous peoples in the national imagination. Another one includes cultural diversity, citizenship, and public policies in urban Brazil 2. This paper, then, handles different traditions. One relates to styles or agendas of Brazilian an- thropological thinking while the other consists of discourses made by some East Timor elites in Dili on the notion of “tradition” as a political moveThis essay is an outcome of field research supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) through grants nº. 401609/2010-3, 201269/2011-2 and 308500/2009- 1. It has also benefited from INCT/InEAC sponsorship. We are grateful for the peer reviewers’ comments that allowed us to improve our arguments