Citizens of the In-Between Young Adults Navigating the Generational Politics of Heroes and Ancestors in Timor-Leste: Young Adults Navigating the Generational Politics of Heroes and Ancestors in Timor-Leste

Abstract

In this dissertation I analyse how young adults construct citizenship in Timor-Leste and how this is shaped by their navigation of intergenerational power dynamics in a context of postcolonial and post-conflict nation-state building. I base my argument on qualitative ethnographic data collected over the course of four fieldwork periods, of in total fifteen months, between 2012 and 2018. I show how the history of Portuguese colonialism and twenty-five years of Indonesian occupation divided the population of the nation-state, independent since 2002, into three generations: the Portuguese, de Indonesian and the post-independence generation. However, I describe young adults (18-30 years old) as an in-between generation as they fall between the cracks of this generational definition. I argue that their in-betweenness gives us crucial insights into citizenship. To study citizenship ethnographically I theorise it as a palimpsest on which different languages of citizenship converge, overlap and contradict each other. I explore how young adults navigate different institutional levels of governance in the suku (village) and in national political parties. In doing so they learn three different languages of citizenship that shape their citizenship palimpsest. I conclude that these different languages of citizenship confront young adults with contradictory expectations towards their citizenship. The in-between generation must, therefore, navigate shifting generational power dynamics, gerontocracy and precedence in a context of democratic nation-state building and decentralisation. Thereby they must constantly search for the balance between active participation and deference. It is this search, I argue, that crucially defines the shape of young adults’ citizenship in Timor-Leste.