Gathering the dead, imagining the state? Commissions for the recovery of human remains

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of ‘commissions’ for the recovery of human remains that have proliferated across Timor-Leste. I argue that the commissions’ practices constitute forms of ‘nonstate governmentality’ (de Cesari 2010, 625) that take the government’s valorisation programme in unexpected directions. By working to exhume, identify, and categorise the dead the commissions are, to some extent, contributing to the state’s goal of dignifying martyrs. At the same time, they are potentially enlarging the definition of martyrdom beyond the state’s narrow interpretation. Ultimately, the commissions bring to light the nation’s painful history and remind the state of its responsibility to dignify all the nation’s martyrs.