283 35 ‘Deadly Rest’: Proximity and the Dead in the Patterns of Burial in Dili, Timor-Leste Damian Grenfell and Frederica Rosa Introduction Santa Ana is a smaller cemetery in Bidau Lecidere in Dili. While declared full by the municipal authority and formally closed for several years, on visiting in 2019 it was noticable that a series of graves had been disturbed; the main slab having been removed or small doors that were built into the front of raised graves were left open showing the coffin had been taken. The cemetery’s caretaker explained that in these cases the remains of people who had died during the Indonesian occupation (1975-99) had subsequently been moved as independence allowed for the repatriation of remains to origin villages. While such movements of bodies might remain relatively uncommon or occur in quite specific sets of circumstances, this example nevertheless brought to the fore the process of internment and the question of how a ‘final resting place’ is determined. An established grave fixes the remains of a person to a particular place, but does so in a way that both retards the decomposition of the body while providing a durable marker of place. This is not unimportant in Timor-Leste where a grave is often described as a ‘home’ for the spirits who might otherwise be left to ‘roam’, as well as creating a tangible space for the still-living to locate their deceased and perform ritual (i.e., prayer). Nevertheless, in the case of the graves in Santa Ana at least, what appeared as a final resting place was in fact more temporary than may have been initially imagined as the remains were repatriated to familial lands. This article holds to a simple claim that a key deteriment in the site of final burial is proximity both to the living and also amongst the dead. A short typology of different locations for internment is made before the article engages with a small selection of interviews from Dili in order to examine the dynamics that inform burial locations, particularly in an urban context, before some concluding comments are made. Proximity, as suggested in the example of Santa Ana here, is a continous theme, however, it remains informed by a series of other factors, including available land, as well as the needs of both the living and the dead. Methodology The research presented here is from the initial stages of a longer-term qualitative project that investigates the social significance of death to the still-living in Timor-Leste. The focus is ‘contemporary death’, meaning that we are examining the ways in which death, and associated practices of mortuary ritual and rememberance, are understood and organised in the post- independence period. For the initial phase of this study we have focused our research on three sites; Dili as the capital and most urbanised centre in the country; Quelecai, a Makasae-speaking sub-district of Baucau on the northern side of Mount Matebian; and Lolotoe, a Bunak-speaking sub-district of Bobonaro that shares a border with Indonesian West Timor. The choice of sites was based on a combination of wanting to add to contemporary research on both Quelecai and Lolotoe, having personal and professional connections that would help initiate the research in each site, as well as a desire to learn from the practices and experiences of different ethno-linguistic groupings. Methods-wise, we have undertaken interviews with police (regional centres, as well as forensic police in Dili), a priest and a catachist, veterans, xefe suku, civil society leaders, carpenters, funeral home directors, lia nain, mortuary workers, funeral car drivers, cemetery workers, members of parliament,