Subterranean waters and the ‘curation’ of underground histories in Timor Leste

Abstract

This paper examines the historical dynamism of Timorese indigenous waterscapes in order to understand the ways in which local peoples ‘curate’ their regional histories. In the Baucau-Viqueque region of Timor Leste understandings of and interactions with subterranean waters, and the springs from where it emerges, are deeply embedded in the foundational organizing principles of local social, political and economic life. By taking up the idea of springs as an historical “archive” and drawing on regional oral narratives associated with water, migration, rice and irrigation, this paper argues that this localized meshwork (Ingold 2011) of water history functions to encode, communicate, mediate and..