Piloting the experimental ZEESM megaproject: Performing the future in the Oecusse-Ambeno enclave

Abstract

‘So, what did you think of the inauguration?’ I asked my young Oecusse friend as we joined hundreds of people walking home from Lifau. We were leaving the site of the district-wide Catholic mass and the dedication of a sizable ship monument depicting the disembarkation of Portuguese Dominicans and their first contact with several Oecusse men. It was 27 November 2015, the culmination of the week-long festivities of what the national government of Timor-Leste was calling a ‘celebration of the affirmation of Timorese identity’ (GoTL 2015). The purported reason for the event was the (approximately) 500th anniversary of the arrival of Portuguese clerics to Oecusse’s shores, co-celebrated with the 40th anniversary of a Timor-Leste 1975 declaration of independence. This landing was celebrated because it symbolised the start of Portuguese presence on the island of Timor, which developed into a colonial presence that lasted until Portugal abandoned the region due to civil chaos