Death and Separation in Postconflict Timor‐Leste

This chapter examines how death dramatizes a key dynamic of social interaction in the central highlands of Timor‐Leste, namely the significance of separation for the establishment of prosperous relations. The main argument is that the assumption of continuity between life‐giving and life‐taking entities creates a need for detachment and differentiation. Mortuary practices bring this dynamic into focus since they create a boundary between the living and the dead, between wife givers and wife takers, and between human and nonhuman domains. The exchange of gifts that takes place upon death establishes separation, which in turn enables the reproduction of life. However, this dynamic of separation has been complicated by experiences of war and conflict, and the second part of the chapter explores, first, the difficulties of keeping life and death apart in a postconflict context and, second, the dangers of complete separation that conflict and occupation can bring about.