Between Kase and Meto
Date
2017
Authors
Rose, Michael
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Abstract
Over the past 40 years, life in Timor-Leste has changed
radically. Before 1975 most of the population lived in highland
villages, spoke local languages, and rarely used money. Today
many have moved into urbanised lowlands settlements, and even
those whose lives remain dominated by customary ways understand
that those of their children will not. For the Atoni Pah Meto of
the island’s west, the world was neatly divided into two
distinct categories: the meto (indigenous), and the kase
(foreign). Now things are less clear. This thesis revolves around
seven tales from two years in Timor-Leste’s Oecussi enclave
that showcase how, in an age of urbanisation on the island, daily
practice emerges from the interplay between these formerly
distinct domains. There the good things of the outside world are
pursued not through rejecting the meto ways of the village, or
collapsing them into the kase, but through the often ritually
mediated negotiation of continual crossing between them. Through
this method, the people of Oecussi are able to identify in the
struggles of lowland life, the comforting and often decisive
presence of familiar highland spirits.
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Timor, Anthropology
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Thesis (PhD)
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