Building on the idea developed in the two preceding chapters that the spiritual and socio-economic realties of meto life can be manifested through somatic experiences such as spirit possession, illness, and death, in this chapter I draw on the notion of affect to query specifically how these perspectives might complicate the logic of top-down, investment-driven economic development.

Despite the familiar potholes and dogs dozing complacently on Pante Makassar's main thoroughfare, as I began my fieldwork in Oecussi, plans were afoot to remake Oecussi as a hub for foreign investment, the Zona Especiais de Economica Social de Mercado (ZEESM – Special Zone for Social Market Economy). In 2013, it was announced that Timor-Leste's Oecussi enclave would become the site of its first special economic zone. The programme is intended to transform the enclave into a regional transportation, industrial, and tourism hub through a massive programme of infrastructure construction and foreign investment.

Despite beginning with high hopes, by May 2015 serious concerns had been raised about the appropriateness of ZEESM's conduct, most significantly including the large-scale, uncompensated acquisition of land and the fostering of an atmosphere described by one focus group as characterized by ‘violence instead of consultation’ (Meitzner Yoder, 2016b). In this chapter I set out to sketch something of how the Meto of Oecussi think about and experience their environment (pah meto’), a task lent urgency by ZEESM's resolve to remake their land in line with capitalist principles privileging international investors and cadastral land management.