Timor-Leste contemporain
Book
Located on the edge of the Asia-Pacific, Timor-Leste is known for having been the scene of one of the greatest human tragedies of the 20th century : the "Timorese genocide" of 1999 precipitated its independence in 2002, after 24 years of Indonesian annexation. Frequently described as "the poorest country in Asia", Timor-Leste has an oil fund of 15 billion dollars, and in 2011 it even proposed to buy back part of the Portuguese debt.
Analysing in turn the history, the socio-cultural foundations and the political, economic and territorial parameters of the construction of this country, 12 specialists have combined their knowledge to unravel the apparent contradictions facing East Timor. Beyond the local specificities and dynamics that constitute the original framework of this study, this book helps us to understand the geopolitical stakes and the perspectives of regional integration on an Asian and global scale.
The colonial (Portuguese and Indonesian) and traditional (with some twenty ethnic and linguistic groups) influences are therefore ongoing and future challenges in a context of globalisation and the internationalisation of governance. In the background, it is the question of how far a people has come since its independence that is raised, opening up rich comparisons with the independences of the last century, which were suddenly confronted with globalisation and questions of identity.
The Editors
Benjamim de Araújo e Corte-Real, has a PhD in Linguistics (Macquarie University, Australia, 2000) with a thesis on verbal art in the Mambai language. He was rector of the National University Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL, 2001-2011) and Director General of the National Institute of Linguistics (INL/UNTL, since 2001), where he supervises, among other things, the teaching of official languages and translations into Tetum.
Christine Cabasset, has a PhD in geography and planning (Sorbonne-Paris IV University, 2000) with a thesis on the relationship between tourism and national unity in Indonesia. She is a research associate at the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE, Paris) and at IRASEC (Bangkok). Her main research topics are territorial governance, elite transformation, social cohesion issues and the structuring of Asean.
Frédéric Durand is a lecturer at the University of Toulouse II-Le Mirail and a researcher at the Institute of Asian Research (IrAsia). A specialist in Indonesia and Timor-Leste, he has published some twenty articles and seven books on Timor.
Timor-Leste contemporain - L’Émergence d’une nation
Paris, Les Indes savantes-IRASEC, 2014, 410 pages.
ISBN : 978-2-84654-364-4
