Indigenous East-Timorese Practices of Building and Sustaining Peace

Abstract

Indigenous East Timorese peacebuilding practices, known as tarabandu, nahe biti , juramentu, matak-malarin, and halerik , are critical to transforming violence in Timor-Leste. These Indigenous peacebuilding practices are usually cheaper, more readily available and more flexible than liberal peacebuilding practices. The prioritisation of liberal peacebuilding over Indigenous peacebuilding systems by the Government and many international actors perpetuates cultural and structural violence in Indigenous communities in Timor-Leste. Despite these challenges, ordinary East Timorese continue to use and assert the importance of Indigenous peacebuilding practices to transform community violence, build relationships and maintain cultural rituals to bring the cosmos and the secular world into balance .

Sophia Close, Ph.D., is a researcher at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. She also holds a BA Economics from the University of Queensland. Email: sophia.close@anu.edu.au. She has worked with bilateral, multilateral, and non-government organisations and has field experience in the Asia Pacific region and Eastern Europe, most recently in PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. Her research interests include Indigenous self-determination, peacebuilding and complex systems theory.