Nation, Transnation, Diaspora: Locating East Timorese Long-distance Nationalism

This article is based on ethnographic research with the East Timorese refugee community in Sydney, Australia, undertaken between 1998 and 2002. it considers the transnational dimensions to their practices of "long-distance nationalism". Moving beyond a simple "homeland" to "refugee" trajectory, the author takes the position that transnational connections and influences must be seen to be both located (that is, consumed and experienced in place) and interconnected beyond the bounds of the group and its homeland. The article aims to map out some of the "imaginative resources" within the "diasporic public sphere" which have contributed to the collective imagination within the East Timorese community. In addition to mapping out the "cultural products" and symbolic production of the East Timorese diasporic public sphere, the article explores both the intercommunal and transnational links entailed therein, and the implications of these on the shape of East Timorese diasporic identity.