In Women's Words: Violence and Everyday Life during the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor, 1975-1999

259 Pages·2018·3.187 MB·English

by  Hannah Loney

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Series Editor: Prof. Mina Roces, School of Humanities and Languages,
The University of New South Wales
This Sussex Library series publishes original scholarly work in various disciplines
(including interdisciplinary and transnational approaches) under the rubric of Asian
and Asian American studies.
China’s Rising Profile: The Great Power Tradition, Harsh V. Pant, King’s
College London.
Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media, Religion and
Language, Chang-Yau Hoon, Singapore University.
Dancing the Feminine: Gender & Identity Performances by Indonesian
Migrant Women, Monika Swasti Winarnita, University of Victoria, BC,
Canada.
Family Ambiguity and Domestic Violence in Asia: Concept, Law and Process,
edited by Maznah Mohamad, National University of Singapore, and Saskia
E. Wieringa, University of Amsterdam.
Han Shan, Chan Buddhism and Gary Snyder’s Ecopoetic Way,Joan Qionglin
Tan, Hunan University, China and University of Wales, Lampeter.
Heteronormativity, Passionate Aesthetics and Symbolic Subversion in Asia,
Saskia E. Wieringa, University of Amsterdam, with Abha Bhaiya and
Nursyahbani Katjasungkana.
The Independence of East Timor: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives —
Occupation, Resistance, and International Political Activism, Clinton
Fernandes, University of New South Wales.
In Women’s Words: Violence and Everyday Life during the Indonesian
Occupation of East Timor, 1975–1999, Hannah Loney.
Negotiating Malay Identities in Singapore: The Role of Modern Islam,
Rizwana Abdul Azeez, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Media Events in Web 2.0 China: Interventions of Online Activism, Jian Xu,
University of New South Wales, Australia.
The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas, edited by Mina Roces and
Louise Edwards, University of New South Wales, Sydney and University of
Technology, Sydney.
Pool of Life: The Autobiography of a Punjabi Agony Aunt,Kailash Puri (co-
author of The Myth of UK Integration), and Eleanor Nesbitt, University of
Warwick.
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Southeast Asian Migration: People on the Move in Search of Work, Marriage
and Refuge, edited by Khatharya Um, University of California, Berkeley, and
Sofia Gaspar, ISCSP-ULisboa, Portugal.
Thinking Beyond the State: Migration, Integration, and Citizenship in Japan
and the Philippines,Johanna O. Zulueta, Soka University, Tokyo, Japan.
Women and Politics in Southeast Asia: Navigating a Man’s World, Theresa
W. Devasahayam, Singapore University.
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“East Timor’s independence campaign is unique in the history of
guerrilla warfare. A small territory about the size of Northern
Ireland, but without a friendly state on its borders, without external
suppliers of weapons, and without a liberated area in which to
recover between guerrilla operations, it relied on international
solidarity and its own population’s heroic resistance to achieve
political independence. Hannah Loney’s perceptive study shows the
pivotal role played by women in this inspiring yet tragic story. Her
exploration of the ‘everyday lives’ of women under occupation is
a significant contribution to scholarship. It is a grim reminder that
behind the rhetoric of “national interest” lay human beings of flesh
and blood – who struggled to hold on to their dignity in the face of
Indonesian aggression and the hostility of great and middle powers.
Loney’s penetrating inquiry honours their struggle by allowing
them to be heard in their own words.”
Professor Clinton Fernandes
University of New South Wales, Australia
“This compassionate and compelling book narrates women’s
histories of the violent Indonesian occupation of East Timor. In
recounting the women’s experience of the invasion, the occupation
and the resistance, Hannah Loney provides a counterpoint to the
masculinist framing of the nationalist narrative of funu or struggle,
acknowledging the contribution of women to struggle and survival.
The women recount their modes of everyday resistance,
accommodation and survival. The specifically gendered forms of
violent everyday intimacy, deployed by the Indonesian military are
linked to the use of gender ideology as a mode of social control in
Suharto’s New Order. This work of feminist oral history recounts
compelling personal narratives of suffering and resistance and puts
on record a dark dimension of the occupation.”
Emeritus Professor Kathryn Robinson
Australian National University, Australia
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“Through the rich insights provided by original interview material,
even further enriched by the inclusion of many other databases and
documents, this book provides an important contribution to the
historiography of East Timor’s occupation by the brutal Indonesian
military. The structural violence, particularly the sexual violence,
the intimidation, the surveillance and the effects that this had – and
still has – on ordinary women’s lives is vividly invoked. This work
convincingly demonstrates the relevance of the oral history method
and approach for mainstream historical writing. The book throws
new light on the history of the Indonesian occupation, theories of
resistance and survival, as well as the growing literature on
women’s agency and resistance.”
Professor Saskia E. Wieringa
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
“This work provides a rich, multilayered account of the ways in
which East Timorese women endured, negotiated and resisted the
brutality of the Indonesian occupation. By placing women’s voices
and experiences at the centre of analysis and paying close attention
to the realm of everyday life, Loney not only deepens
understandings of the gendered and gendering effects of political
violence but also contributes to a radical rethinking of the nature
of agency, resistance and the political. It is essential reading for
those interested in East Timorese politics, culture and history, and
for scholars concerned with the enduring legacies of political
violence in Timor-Leste and beyond.”
Dr Lia Kent
Australian National University, Australia
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Copyright © Hannah Loney, 2018.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2018.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139, Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
Distributed worldwide by
Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610, USA
ISBN 9781845198916 (Cloth)
ISBN 9781782844686 (Pdf)
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Contents
Preface by Series Editor Mina Roces ix
Acknowledgements xi
Abbreviations and Terms xiv
Map of Timor-Leste xviii
Introduction: “Our Entire Lives Had Changed Completely” 1
1 “This Is Me”: Women’s Narratives of the Indonesian 13
Occupation
2 “The Bullets Were Just Like Leaves”: Women’s Experiences 37
of Invasion and Conflict
3 “We As Women, We Really, Really Suffered”: Women and 62
the Violence of Military Occupation
4 “There Was No Escape”: Women and Everyday Life under 88
Indonesian Rule
5 “And I Started to Understand”: Women and the 115
Development of a Culture of Resistance
Conclusion:“The Chance of a Lifetime” 142
Appendix: Biographical Data from Oral History Interviews 148
Notes 167
Bibliography 198
Index 226