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Frontmatter -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on Language and Transcription -- Introduction. The Land of Gold -- Chapter One. Sacred Origins of Life -- Chapter Two. Concealing Trunk Knowledge -- Chapter Three. The Hazards of House Reconstruction -- Chapter Four. On the Pain of Separation -- Chapter Five. Keeping the Dead Away -- Chapter Six. Fear of the Land -- Epilogue. Not Ancestor, Not Not-Ancestor -- Glossary. Idatè Words and Acronyms -- Bibliography -- Index -- SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAM PUBLICATIONS. Cornell University

For the people of Timor-Leste, independence promised a fundamental transformation from foreign occupation to self-rule, from brutality to respect for basic rights, and from poverty to prosperity. In the eyes of the country's political leaders, revenue from the country's oil and gas reserves is the means by which that transformation could be effected. Over the past decade, they have formulated ambitious plans for state-led development projects and rapid economic growth. Paradoxically, these modernist visions are simultaneously informed by and contradict ideas stemming from custom, religion, accountability and responsibility to future generations. This book explores how the promise of prosperity informs policy and how policy debates shape expectations about the future in one of the world's newest and poorest nation-states.

What is the relationship between intentions – their accessibility and their opacity – and the assertion of political authority? Opacity is a central aspect of customary authority in contemporary Timor-Leste, where obscuring the intentions and motivations underlying specific actions – by attributing them to metapersons – can be a subtle way of making claims to authority and status, and simultaneously an effective way of avoiding conflict. This article examines what happened when this form of opacity-based governance was scaled up to the level of the nation, in the context of a massive oil and gas infrastructure project in Suai, Covalima. 'Governing through opacity' by mobilising local practices – when adopted by the state – brought out rivalries between groups competing for state recognition. The analysis of the emerging tensions between two ritual speakers illustrates how the implementation of this oil project and related forms of 'state legibility' undermined locally emplaced forms of authority by forcing the revelation of disparate and otherwise hidden intentions. Examining these conflicts highlights the unstable and uneven relationship between intention management and different regimes of governance.

Research on strategic ignorance tends to focus on the deliberate manufacture of non-knowledge as a tool of governance. In contrast, this article highlights the 'banal' workings of wilful blindness, how it can become a normalised part of corporate routine. It examines the diverse dynamics of wilful blindness that became visible in the planning and implementation of a mega oil development project in Timor-Leste, including spatial distancing, denial of moral implications, and the production of effervescent moments of collective solidarity. It concludes that affective states are key in the normalisation of wilful blindness, which operates at the unstable boundary between intention and affect. An emphasis on wilful blindness helps us to bridge the gap between political economy approaches that emphasise the disruptive impact of resource abundance, on the one hand, and anthropological approaches that highlight the social logics and ethical evaluations of main actors involved, on the other.

For the people of Timor-Leste, independence promised a fundamental transformation from foreign occupation to self-rule, from brutality to respect for basic rights, and from poverty to prosperity. In the eyes of the country's political leaders, revenue from the country's oil and gas reserves is the means by which that transformation could be effected. Over the past decade, they have formulated ambitious plans for state-led development projects and rapid economic growth. Paradoxically, these modernist visions are simultaneously informed by and contradict ideas stemming from custom, religion, accountability and responsibility to future generations. This book explores how the promise of prosperity informs policy and how policy debates shape expectations about the future in one of the world's newest and poorest nation-states.

In Timor-Leste, visions of radical societal transformation and future wealth derived from gold and oil are accompanied by concerns that outsiders might be conspiring to rob the country of its riches, as well as conjuring up dystopian scenarios of sinister plots and future mayhem. Examining national narratives and local accounts, this article argues that visions of prosperity and visions of conspiracy are two sides of the same coin; both are embedded in an understanding that power works in invisible ways. In discussing these visions in relation to the literature on "conspiracy theories" and "cargo cults" (terms that have recently been imported to the study of Timor-Leste), it explores the critical potential of these visions. Whereas the labels "conspiracy theory" and "cargo cult" create distinctions between the "rational" perspective of the West and the "irrationality" of non-Western others, as practices these visions end up collapsing such distinctions by appropriating the power of the outside.

What are the politics of ignorance in an age of misinformation? How can the concept of 'wilful blindness' help us to understand the logics involved? We start the introduction to this special issue by arguing that the intrinsic instability of wilful blindness draws valuable attention to the graded nature of intentionality and perception, and the tensions between them. These features are an essential part of the workings of ignorance, as we illustrate with reference to the shifting intentions of drug couriers, the fleeting moments in which the humanity of victims is recognised in the midst of violent acts, and the affects that channel economic behaviour, such as in the subprime mortgage crisis. When approaching perception and intentionality as complexly entangled in institutionalised fields of power, 'wilful blindness' emerges as a powerful and critical diagnostic of the epistemic instabilities of our time.

This special issue examines the political context and social impacts of plans for two statesponsored megaprojects in Timor-Leste: the Special Zone of Social Market Economy (ZEESM) in the Oecusse enclave, and the Tasi Mane Project stretching along the south coast. Tracing debates about national development models in Timor-Leste back to the Indonesian occupation and transition period to independence, this Introduction situates these projects within contemporary debates about development. We pay special attention to two key aspects: how megaprojects transform people's relations with the land, a vital source of livelihoods and cultural meaning; and how different ethnolinguistic groups in Timor-Leste are adapting local practice to accommodate change. We conclude by highlighting how megaprojects reflect and affect aspects of life beyond economic development: governance practice, assertion of sovereignty, sensory losses and identity, ritual adaptations and aspirations for the future.