Abstract

Parting from Jake in Dili, I arrive in Oecussi and quickly become reacquainted with an old friend from the time I spent there with the UN, Markus. Once a prominent entrepreneur and public servant who relished the ‘opportunities’ that came with his position he was now a pariah, having been accused of embezzling thousands of dollars from his office. While his family outwardly accepted Markus's fall was a result of a conspiracy by mendacious rivals, he was also known for trampling traditions, taboos, and hierarchies in pursuit of wealth, and some privately suggested that his misfortune might be spiritual retribution. Through this sometimesdramatic story I explore how, for some at least, meto frameworks are used to understand success and failure in the kase world.

Keywords: corruption, governance, United Nations, international development

You look at, say, a country in Africa and all you’re able to see is a series of lacks – of things that should be there but aren’t. And you end up constructing huge parts of the world as just sort of empty spaces where things ought to be there but aren’t. And it leads to a kind of impoverished understanding, I think, because you don't really understand what is going on here. How do people conduct their affairs? How is legitimate authority exercised? How are rules made and enforced? You know, all the kinds of questions that ought to be the starting place tend to disappear or recede into the background (cited in Schouten, 2009).