Fieldwork in Timor-Leste: Understanding Social Change through Practice

edited by Maj Nygaard-Christensen and Angie Bexley

This ground-breaking exploration of research in Timor-Leste brings together veteran and early-career scholars who broadly represent a range of fieldwork practices and challenges from colonial times to the present day. Here, they introduce readers to their experiences of conducting anthropological, historical and archival fieldwork in this new nation. The volume further explores the contestations and deliberations that have been symptomatic of the country’s nation-building process, highlighting how the preconceptions of development workers and researchers might be challenged on the ground. By making more explicable the processes of social and political change in Timor-Leste, the volume offers a critical contribution for those in the academic, policy and development communities working there. This is a must-have volume for scholars, other fieldworkers and policy-makers preparing to work in Timor-Leste, invaluable for those needing to understand the country from afar, and a fascinating read for anyone interested in the Timorese world.

Angie Bexley holds a PhD in anthropology from the Australian National University. Angie has undertaken extensive fieldwork in Indonesia and Timor-Leste since 2000 and has published widely on youth identity, art, politics, and inclusion in Indonesia and Timor Leste. Angie is currently an adjunct fellow at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.

Maj Nygaard-Christensen holds a PhD in anthropology and has carried out fieldwork in Timor-Leste over more than a decade. She is particularly interested in policy processes and the (unintended) effects of development interventions. Among others, this has led to the completion of a post-doctoral project on democracy promotion practices in Timor-Leste, and the near-completion of a book manuscript that examines the humanitarian intervention in the country as a political and material presence. She is currently employed at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University.

Publication year: 2017
278 pp / 229mm x 152mm
13 figures
ISBN: 978-87-7694-209-0, Paperback
ISBN: 978-87-7694-208-3, Hardback

NIAS Press