J Bovensiepen
Biographic Data
| ID | 19379 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Bovensiepen |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Bovensiepen |
| SIGNATURE | BOVENSIEPEN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kent |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6092-7874 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 159 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Fiat speech, fiat infrastructure
In 2011 the independent government of Timor-Leste initiated a controversial oil and gas infrastructure project. To persuade Timorese citizens to embrace their vision of the future based on oil and gas, supporters of the project employed narrative strategies conventionally reserved for ritual authorities. Their scaling of ritual speech to the level of the nation hinged on establishing iconic links across different event-worlds (chronotopes). "Fiat…
Governing Through Opacity
What is the relationship between intentions - their accessibility and their opacity - and the assertion of political authority? Opacity is a central aspect of customary authority in contemporary Timor-Leste, where obscuring the intentions and motivations underlying specific actions - by attributing them to metapersons - can be a subtle way of making claims to authority and status, and simultaneously an effective way of avoiding conflict. This art…
Mekong Dreaming
Reviewed by: Mekong Dreaming: Life and Death Along a Changing River by Andrew Alan Johnson Judith Bovensiepen Andrew Alan Johnson. Mekong Dreaming: Life and Death Along a Changing River. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. 208 pp. The Mekong River, which divides Thailand and Laos, runs through six countries. Life along the river has changed drastically in recent years due to—among other factors—the construction of a dam in China that has led to …
Can Oil Speak? On the Production of Ontological Difference and Ambivalence in Extractive Encounters
Two disparate views emerge as rural people living along Timor-Leste's south coast are confronted by extractive industries charged with implementing a large oil infrastructure project: emphasis is put either on the productive potential of the non-human environment or on the spiritual connections with particular sites. While political ontology approaches posit that resource conflicts reveal underlying ontological differences between animism and nat…
Dynamics of wilful blindness
What are the politics of ignorance in an age of misinformation? How can the concept of 'wilful blindness' help us to understand the logics involved? We start the introduction to this special issue by arguing that the intrinsic instability of wilful blindness draws valuable attention to the graded nature of intentionality and perception, and the tensions between them. These features are an essential part of the workings of ignorance, as we illustr…
On the banality of wilful blindness
Research on strategic ignorance tends to focus on the deliberate manufacture of non-knowledge as a tool of governance. In contrast, this article highlights the 'banal' workings of wilful blindness, how it can become a normalised part of corporate routine. It examines the diverse dynamics of wilful blindness that became visible in the planning and implementation of a mega oil development project in Timor-Leste, including spatial distancing, denial…
Introduction
This special issue examines the political context and social impacts of plans for two state-sponsored megaprojects in Timor-Leste: the Special Zone of Social Market Economy (ZEESM) in the Oecusse enclave, and the Tasi Mane Project stretching along the south coast. Tracing debates about national development models in Timor-Leste back to the Indonesian occupation and transition period to independence, this Introduction situates these projects withi…
Petroleum Planning as State Building in Timor-Leste
This article examines the aesthetics and contestations surrounding the planning of a far-reaching petroleum infrastructure and development scheme on the south coast of Timor-Leste. The project, known as Tasi Mane, is symptomatic of the central role that oil and gas revenues have come to play in the country’s development. The article explores how promises of prosperity mobilise visions of societal improvement that were once associated with indepen…
Visions of prosperity and conspiracy in Timor-Leste
In Timor-Leste, visions of radical societal transformation and future wealth derived from gold and oil are accompanied by concerns that outsiders might be conspiring to rob the country of its riches, as well as conjuring up dystopian scenarios of sinister plots and future mayhem. Examining national narratives and local accounts, this article argues that visions of prosperity and visions of conspiracy are two sides of the same coin; both are embed…
Transformations of the Sacred in East Timor
For Catholic missionaries in the early twentieth century, the only way to achieve true conversion of Timorese ancestral ritualists was the deliberate destruction of sacredlulikhouses. Although Timorese allegedly participated enthusiastically in this destruction,lulik(a term commonly translated as sacred, proscribed, holy, or taboo) remains a key part of ritual practice today. This article offers a dynamic historical analysis of what may be descri…
The Land of Gold
In the village of Funar, located in the central highlands of Timor-Leste, the disturbing events of the twenty-four-year-long Indonesian occupation are rarely articulated in narratives of suffering. Instead, the highlanders emphasize the significance of their return to the sacred land of the ancestors, a place where "gold" is abundant and life is thought to originate. On one hand, this collective amnesia is due to villagers' exclusion from contemp…
Lulik
This article explores the continued significance of lulik for people living in the central highlands of Timor‐Leste today, lulik being a term frequently translated as ‘sacred’. In contrast to the straightforward definition of lulik as the sacred property of religious places or objects set apart from everyday life, it shows that lulik is understood as a potency that animates the environment and that is concentrated in specific sites in the landsca…
Installing the insider "outside"
Across Timor-Leste the reconstruction of ancestral origin houses has been a focus of immense personal and financial efforts since the end of the Indonesian occupation in 1999. I explore the rebuilding and inauguration of origin houses in the village of Funar, reoccupied by residents after their forcible resettlement elsewhere for over two decades. Examining how experiences of violence and displacement can engender new modes of identification, I c…
Words of the ancestors
By examining processes of revealing and concealing ancestral 'words', this article analyses the connection between East Timorese knowledge practices and status competition. The point of departure is a tension between the assertion by eminent ritual speakers in the Idaté-speaking village of Funar of the need to discover the most truthful 'trunk' knowledge, and the simultaneous and continual concealment of what this 'trunk' may consist of. The arti…
Paying for the Dead
Since Timor-Leste regained independence in 2002, there has been a revival of customary practices across the country. In the village of Funar, this has taken the shape of intensive investment in death ceremonies. This article takes death as a lens through which to examine changing social and political relations in Funar during the post-independence period. It analyses how exchanges that occur upon death serve to sever relations between house group…
Kinship and Food in Southeast Asia
Food has an important role in establishing and structuring social and kin relations in Southeast Asian societies. For this reason, there is growing interest within anthropology in understanding how the production, processing and consumption of food is one important basis for the construction of ties of relatedness, so-called ‘kin’ ties. These are often based at least partly on ‘shared substance’. In this respect, a book on Southeast Asia is espec…
Spiritual Landscapes of Life and Death in the Central Highlands of East Timor
In the 1990s, the inhabitants of the East Timorese highland village of Funar returned to their ancestral land after having been forcibly dislocated by the Indonesian military. This paper explores how recent historical events, war, forced resettlement and conversion to Catholicism have affected the villagers' relationship with the spiritual landscape. Have these historical developments, as they have done elsewhere in Southeast Asia, led to the pur…
Spiritual Landscapes of Life and Death in the Central Highlands of East Timor
In the 1990s, the inhabitants of the East Timorese highland village of Funar returned to their ancestral land after having been forcibly dislocated by the Indonesian military. This paper explores how recent historical events, war, forced resettlement and conversion to Catholicism have affected the villagers' relationship with the spiritual landscape. Have these historical developments, as they have done elsewhere in Southeast Asia, led to the pur…
Installing the insider "outside"
Across Timor-Leste the reconstruction of ancestral origin houses has been a focus of immense personal and financial efforts since the end of the Indonesian occupation in 1999. I explore the rebuilding and inauguration of origin houses in the village of Funar, reoccupied by residents after their forcible resettlement elsewhere for over two decades. Examining how experiences of violence and displacement can engender new modes of identification, I c…
Dynamics of wilful blindness
What are the politics of ignorance in an age of misinformation? How can the concept of 'wilful blindness' help us to understand the logics involved? We start the introduction to this special issue by arguing that the intrinsic instability of wilful blindness draws valuable attention to the graded nature of intentionality and perception, and the tensions between them. These features are an essential part of the workings of ignorance, as we illustr…
Kinship and Food in Southeast Asia
Food has an important role in establishing and structuring social and kin relations in Southeast Asian societies. For this reason, there is growing interest within anthropology in understanding how the production, processing and consumption of food is one important basis for the construction of ties of relatedness, so-called ‘kin’ ties. These are often based at least partly on ‘shared substance’. In this respect, a book on Southeast Asia is espec…
Paying for the Dead
Since Timor-Leste regained independence in 2002, there has been a revival of customary practices across the country. In the village of Funar, this has taken the shape of intensive investment in death ceremonies. This article takes death as a lens through which to examine changing social and political relations in Funar during the post-independence period. It analyses how exchanges that occur upon death serve to sever relations between house group…
Petroleum Planning as State Building in Timor-Leste
This article examines the aesthetics and contestations surrounding the planning of a far-reaching petroleum infrastructure and development scheme on the south coast of Timor-Leste. The project, known as Tasi Mane, is symptomatic of the central role that oil and gas revenues have come to play in the country’s development. The article explores how promises of prosperity mobilise visions of societal improvement that were once associated with indepen…
Transformations of the Sacred in East Timor
For Catholic missionaries in the early twentieth century, the only way to achieve true conversion of Timorese ancestral ritualists was the deliberate destruction of sacredlulikhouses. Although Timorese allegedly participated enthusiastically in this destruction,lulik(a term commonly translated as sacred, proscribed, holy, or taboo) remains a key part of ritual practice today. This article offers a dynamic historical analysis of what may be descri…
Can Oil Speak? On the Production of Ontological Difference and Ambivalence in Extractive Encounters
Two disparate views emerge as rural people living along Timor-Leste's south coast are confronted by extractive industries charged with implementing a large oil infrastructure project: emphasis is put either on the productive potential of the non-human environment or on the spiritual connections with particular sites. While political ontology approaches posit that resource conflicts reveal underlying ontological differences between animism and nat…
Words of the ancestors
By examining processes of revealing and concealing ancestral 'words', this article analyses the connection between East Timorese knowledge practices and status competition. The point of departure is a tension between the assertion by eminent ritual speakers in the Idaté-speaking village of Funar of the need to discover the most truthful 'trunk' knowledge, and the simultaneous and continual concealment of what this 'trunk' may consist of. The arti…
Introduction
This special issue examines the political context and social impacts of plans for two state-sponsored megaprojects in Timor-Leste: the Special Zone of Social Market Economy (ZEESM) in the Oecusse enclave, and the Tasi Mane Project stretching along the south coast. Tracing debates about national development models in Timor-Leste back to the Indonesian occupation and transition period to independence, this Introduction situates these projects withi…
On the banality of wilful blindness
Research on strategic ignorance tends to focus on the deliberate manufacture of non-knowledge as a tool of governance. In contrast, this article highlights the 'banal' workings of wilful blindness, how it can become a normalised part of corporate routine. It examines the diverse dynamics of wilful blindness that became visible in the planning and implementation of a mega oil development project in Timor-Leste, including spatial distancing, denial…
Visions of prosperity and conspiracy in Timor-Leste
In Timor-Leste, visions of radical societal transformation and future wealth derived from gold and oil are accompanied by concerns that outsiders might be conspiring to rob the country of its riches, as well as conjuring up dystopian scenarios of sinister plots and future mayhem. Examining national narratives and local accounts, this article argues that visions of prosperity and visions of conspiracy are two sides of the same coin; both are embed…
Fiat speech, fiat infrastructure
In 2011 the independent government of Timor-Leste initiated a controversial oil and gas infrastructure project. To persuade Timorese citizens to embrace their vision of the future based on oil and gas, supporters of the project employed narrative strategies conventionally reserved for ritual authorities. Their scaling of ritual speech to the level of the nation hinged on establishing iconic links across different event-worlds (chronotopes). "Fiat…
Governing Through Opacity
What is the relationship between intentions - their accessibility and their opacity - and the assertion of political authority? Opacity is a central aspect of customary authority in contemporary Timor-Leste, where obscuring the intentions and motivations underlying specific actions - by attributing them to metapersons - can be a subtle way of making claims to authority and status, and simultaneously an effective way of avoiding conflict. This art…
Kinship and Food in Southeast Asia
Food has an important role in establishing and structuring social and kin relations in Southeast Asian societies. For this reason, there is growing interest within anthropology in understanding how the production, processing and consumption of food is one important basis for the construction of ties of relatedness, so-called ‘kin’ ties. These are often based at least partly on ‘shared substance’. In this respect, a book on Southeast Asia is espec…
Spiritual Landscapes of Life and Death in the Central Highlands of East Timor
In the 1990s, the inhabitants of the East Timorese highland village of Funar returned to their ancestral land after having been forcibly dislocated by the Indonesian military. This paper explores how recent historical events, war, forced resettlement and conversion to Catholicism have affected the villagers' relationship with the spiritual landscape. Have these historical developments, as they have done elsewhere in Southeast Asia, led to the pur…
Lulik
This article explores the continued significance of lulik for people living in the central highlands of Timor‐Leste today, lulik being a term frequently translated as ‘sacred’. In contrast to the straightforward definition of lulik as the sacred property of religious places or objects set apart from everyday life, it shows that lulik is understood as a potency that animates the environment and that is concentrated in specific sites in the landsca…
Installing the insider "outside"
Across Timor-Leste the reconstruction of ancestral origin houses has been a focus of immense personal and financial efforts since the end of the Indonesian occupation in 1999. I explore the rebuilding and inauguration of origin houses in the village of Funar, reoccupied by residents after their forcible resettlement elsewhere for over two decades. Examining how experiences of violence and displacement can engender new modes of identification, I c…
Words of the ancestors
By examining processes of revealing and concealing ancestral 'words', this article analyses the connection between East Timorese knowledge practices and status competition. The point of departure is a tension between the assertion by eminent ritual speakers in the Idaté-speaking village of Funar of the need to discover the most truthful 'trunk' knowledge, and the simultaneous and continual concealment of what this 'trunk' may consist of. The arti…
Paying for the Dead
Since Timor-Leste regained independence in 2002, there has been a revival of customary practices across the country. In the village of Funar, this has taken the shape of intensive investment in death ceremonies. This article takes death as a lens through which to examine changing social and political relations in Funar during the post-independence period. It analyses how exchanges that occur upon death serve to sever relations between house group…
The Land of Gold
In the village of Funar, located in the central highlands of Timor-Leste, the disturbing events of the twenty-four-year-long Indonesian occupation are rarely articulated in narratives of suffering. Instead, the highlanders emphasize the significance of their return to the sacred land of the ancestors, a place where "gold" is abundant and life is thought to originate. On one hand, this collective amnesia is due to villagers' exclusion from contemp…
Visions of prosperity and conspiracy in Timor-Leste
In Timor-Leste, visions of radical societal transformation and future wealth derived from gold and oil are accompanied by concerns that outsiders might be conspiring to rob the country of its riches, as well as conjuring up dystopian scenarios of sinister plots and future mayhem. Examining national narratives and local accounts, this article argues that visions of prosperity and visions of conspiracy are two sides of the same coin; both are embed…
Transformations of the Sacred in East Timor
For Catholic missionaries in the early twentieth century, the only way to achieve true conversion of Timorese ancestral ritualists was the deliberate destruction of sacredlulikhouses. Although Timorese allegedly participated enthusiastically in this destruction,lulik(a term commonly translated as sacred, proscribed, holy, or taboo) remains a key part of ritual practice today. This article offers a dynamic historical analysis of what may be descri…
Introduction
This special issue examines the political context and social impacts of plans for two state-sponsored megaprojects in Timor-Leste: the Special Zone of Social Market Economy (ZEESM) in the Oecusse enclave, and the Tasi Mane Project stretching along the south coast. Tracing debates about national development models in Timor-Leste back to the Indonesian occupation and transition period to independence, this Introduction situates these projects withi…
Petroleum Planning as State Building in Timor-Leste
This article examines the aesthetics and contestations surrounding the planning of a far-reaching petroleum infrastructure and development scheme on the south coast of Timor-Leste. The project, known as Tasi Mane, is symptomatic of the central role that oil and gas revenues have come to play in the country’s development. The article explores how promises of prosperity mobilise visions of societal improvement that were once associated with indepen…
Dynamics of wilful blindness
What are the politics of ignorance in an age of misinformation? How can the concept of 'wilful blindness' help us to understand the logics involved? We start the introduction to this special issue by arguing that the intrinsic instability of wilful blindness draws valuable attention to the graded nature of intentionality and perception, and the tensions between them. These features are an essential part of the workings of ignorance, as we illustr…
On the banality of wilful blindness
Research on strategic ignorance tends to focus on the deliberate manufacture of non-knowledge as a tool of governance. In contrast, this article highlights the 'banal' workings of wilful blindness, how it can become a normalised part of corporate routine. It examines the diverse dynamics of wilful blindness that became visible in the planning and implementation of a mega oil development project in Timor-Leste, including spatial distancing, denial…
Can Oil Speak? On the Production of Ontological Difference and Ambivalence in Extractive Encounters
Two disparate views emerge as rural people living along Timor-Leste's south coast are confronted by extractive industries charged with implementing a large oil infrastructure project: emphasis is put either on the productive potential of the non-human environment or on the spiritual connections with particular sites. While political ontology approaches posit that resource conflicts reveal underlying ontological differences between animism and nat…
Mekong Dreaming
Reviewed by: Mekong Dreaming: Life and Death Along a Changing River by Andrew Alan Johnson Judith Bovensiepen Andrew Alan Johnson. Mekong Dreaming: Life and Death Along a Changing River. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. 208 pp. The Mekong River, which divides Thailand and Laos, runs through six countries. Life along the river has changed drastically in recent years due to—among other factors—the construction of a dam in China that has led to …
Governing Through Opacity
What is the relationship between intentions - their accessibility and their opacity - and the assertion of political authority? Opacity is a central aspect of customary authority in contemporary Timor-Leste, where obscuring the intentions and motivations underlying specific actions - by attributing them to metapersons - can be a subtle way of making claims to authority and status, and simultaneously an effective way of avoiding conflict. This art…
Fiat speech, fiat infrastructure
In 2011 the independent government of Timor-Leste initiated a controversial oil and gas infrastructure project. To persuade Timorese citizens to embrace their vision of the future based on oil and gas, supporters of the project employed narrative strategies conventionally reserved for ritual authorities. Their scaling of ritual speech to the level of the nation hinged on establishing iconic links across different event-worlds (chronotopes). "Fiat…
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (7 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Cambodian History and Society (6 works) · Ethnology (6 works)