ABSTRACT
Poor people attempting to claim a share of resources in post-conflict societies seek allies internationally and nationally in attempts to empower their campaigns. In so doing, they mobilise the languages of liberalism, nationalism and local cultural tradition selectively and opportunistically both to justify stances that transgress the strictures of local culture and to cement alliances with more powerful actors. In the case of poor widows in East Timor the languages of nationalism, ritual and justice were intermingled in a campaign aimed at both international actors and the national state in a bid to claim a position of status in the post-conflict order.
