ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses pedagogic practices of the Timor-Leste state and other governance agents to strengthen commodity production and circulation. It analyses a specific tara bandu carried out in Ermera in 2012 – Tara bandu, is a government ritual device to impose prohibitions on people – as well as an education campaign broadcast on Timor-Leste Radio and Television (RTTL). The chapter discusses some ways in which certain Timor-Leste governance tactics on the part of diverse actors and in different contexts aim at disciplining the management of material resources towards producing commodities and labour force, and thus engage people in the market economy. The economic pedagogy of the Instituto de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Empresarial (IADE) campaign and in the Ermera tara bandu is based on parasitical use of the gift regime – in order to weaken it – to introduce the moralities and consequences typical of the market regime.
