Office for Environmental Programs - Theses

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Author: Flores-Castillo, Ruben × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 × Subject: Development ×

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    While the community is waiting for Malai: local lifeways and traditions of change in Tartehi and Lekitehi, Timor-Leste
    Flores-Castillo, Ruben ( 2013)
    Development initiatives in the form of community-based tourism represent for local communities an additional livelihood practice from which they can benefit. As a non-traditional market based economic activity members can generate an additional income to satisfy different needs. But at the same time there can be negative influences in the local life ways and traditions. This research focuses on one of these initiatives in a local ethno-linguistic community in the mountains of Maubisi in Timor-Leste. Specifically it explores if this development initiative has been integrated into traditional rural life ways for the benefit of the community. By employing the metaphorical-analytical notion of 'friction' used by Tsing to explore "interconnections across difference" (Tsing 2005:4), this research examines the ways in which the local communities produce global connections through space, place and time and enhance social bonds. The primary methods for collecting the information for this research were participant observation and informal and key participant semi-structured interviews with members of the community, members of the community-based tourism cooperative and members of the NGO which supported the creation of the initiative. As I argue in this paper, the community-based initiative is allowing the community to reproduce and refashion their social relations and cultural capital through "interconnections across difference" creating possible community benefits. I also argue that in the face of changing forces which may impact their lifeways, the community is already drawing on its own `tradition of change' to reproduce and refashion the social cohesion necessary for preserving their lifeways and 'cultural resources and to engage with the community-based tourism initiative. This thesis does not advocate for tourism initiatives in indigenous communities in Timor-Leste or anywhere else around the world, rather it argues that each situation and case should be regarded as context-specific