State and nation building, although often used interchangeably in international relations
policy and literature, are in fact two distinct, although closely intertwined, processes: the (re)construction
of a state cannot be reduced to a technical exercise, that is, state building; rather, it needs
to focus just as significantly on the (re)construction of the country’s social fabric in order to develop
the sense of citizenship upon which its sovereignty and legitimacy rest, that is, nation building. This
research note introduces urban spaces as interesting contexts to explore the relationship between
state and nation building, arguing that their diversity is both a challenge and an opportunity for the
state to create a sense of citizenship amongst its population. The case of Dili, the capital of Timor
Leste, where a violent past and rapid urbanisation have combined to shape extremely diverse social,
political and economic urban spaces, is used here to explore how the population of three case
study areas perceives the impact of state policies and to question how these perceptions influence
the scales at which people build their identity as well as how these scales affect the construction of
local, urban or national citizenship in Timor Leste.