 |
Current and Recent Projects | Our Publications
Understanding the nature of community is a cross-cutting theme across all our projects. The following list represents only those projects where community is a central theme.
Current and Recent Projects
Community Security and Sustainability
Community Security and Sustainability
Timeframe: July 2007-July 2009
Researchers:
Dr Damian Grenfell
Mayra Walsh
Carmenesa Moniz Noronha
Anna Trembath
Kym Holthouse
Research Sites: Aldeia Luha Oli, sub-district Venilale, Baucau district
Aldeia Nanu, sub-district Fatumean, Covalima district
Aldeia Sarelari, sub-district Luro, Lautem district
Aldeia Golgota, sub-district Dom Aleixo, Dili district
Funding: Irish Aid Timor-Leste
Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University
Global Cities Institute, RMIT University
Oxfam Australia
Concern Worldwide
Publications: Final Four-Site Report in English (Report and Cover) and Tetun (Report and Cover) (July 2009)
Initial Two-Site Report in English (Report and Cover) (August 2008)
This project was framed by a concern for how communities in Timor-Leste are able to maintain security and sustainability. The concept of 'community security' allows for a consideration of both direct threats, such as social conflict, violence and property destruction, as well as the ability to achieve those things that might be understood to enable a good life, such as access to adequate shelter, food, health, education and cultural expression. 'Community sustainability', a framework used by the Globalism Research Centre in our research across the globe, refers to the ways in which communities hold themselves together in a durable and coherent form over a period of time, even in the face of substantial challenges and under periods of intense change.
Our research attempted to illuminate contemporary conditions and patterns of social life in Timor-Leste by focusing particularly on one of the most localized forms of community, namely the aldeia, rather than on the nation-state. Despite nation formation and national identity, localized forms of community remain extremely important in Timor-Leste. In terms of work, family, mobility and levels of identity, it is more localized forms of community that provide both the primary material and cultural basis of social life for a very large number of people. Analysis at this level also allows for another way to understand the national conditions of Timor-Leste, if such communities are taken as fairly representative of local communities across the nation.
Our research was undertaken in four sites across Timor-Leste: aldeia Luha Oli (sub-district Venilale, Baucau), aldeia Nanu (sub-district Fatumean, Covalima), aldeia Sarelari (sub-district Luro, Lautem), and aldeia Golgota (sub-district Dom Aleixo, Dili).
With this project we generated a broad empirical foundation, one of use to communities, governments and other institutions in assessing policy directions. It will help to develop durable links between communities and researchers, government agencies and NGOs, providing information for communities themselves in enacting their own sustainability goals. And it will challenge some of the current theoretical trends that reduce community either to a form of social capital or to a residual concern in the putatively more important task of enhancing economic development.
Methods used included various individual and household surveys, semi-structured interviews, photo-narrative, and temporal, spatial and family mapping techniques. Project staff worked across various languages, including Tetun, Bahasa Indonesia and local languages.
Impacts of National NGO Gender Projects in Local Communities
Impacts of National NGO Gender Projects in Local Communities in Timor-Leste:
A collaborative research and evaluation project
Timeframe: June 2009-July 2010
Project Manager: Anna Trembath
Researchers: Anna Trembath (RMIT)
Carmenesa Moniz Noronha (RMIT)
Dr Damian Grenfell (RMIT)
Mayra Walsh (RMIT)
Filomena Fuca (GFFTL)
Aida Exposto (FKSH)
Ambrosio Dias Fernandes (FKSH)
Elda Barros (Alola)
Maria Fatima Pereira Guterres (Alola)
Fransisca da Silva (Women's Justice Unit, JSMP)
Mario Duarte Soriano (Women's Justice Unit, JSMP)
NGO Partners: Grupo Feto Foinsa'e Timor Lorosa'e (GFFTL)
Feto iha K'biit Servisu Hamutuk (FKSH)
Fundasaun Alola
Women's Justice Unit, Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP)
Funding: Irish Aid and Trocaire in Timor-Leste
This project involves RMIT University's Timor-Leste Research Program working with four East Timorese NGO partners (listed above) in order to collaboratively research and evaluate the impacts of the NGOs' gender-focused projects in local communities. Two staff from each organisation participate as co-researchers. Each NGO has selected one project to evaluate and one locale in which to conduct fieldwork (sub-district Venilale, sub-district Ermera, sub-district Atauro and sub-district Manatuto).
The RMIT team is delivering comprehensive, ongoing training and accompanying the NGO staff throughout the entire process so as to develop capacity in gender-sensitive research and evaluation. The projects runs entirely in Tetun.
We use an array of research methods, including a Gender Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour Questionnaire, Location Mapping, Social Relationship Mapping, Timelines, Participatory Indicators, 'Most Significant Change' Interviews, Focus Group Discussions, Observation and Photodocumentation.
Update December 2009: The team has completed the first two phases of the project (Phase One: Project Preparation and Introduction to Gender-Sensitive Research and Evaluation, and Phase Two: Data Collection, Consolidation and Entry). We have now entered the third phase of the project, Data Analysis and Production of Final Written Results. The NGO teams together with RMIT are workshopping data analysis and beginning to write up results. We anticipate that the project report (both Tetun and English versions) will be released by July 2010.
Nation-Building Across Urban and Rural Timor-Leste
Nation-Building Across Urban and Rural Timor-Leste: Gender, Justice, Peace and Security, Development and Governance
A Conference to Reflect on 10 Years of Nation-Building in Timor-Leste
Dili, Timor-Leste
Dates: 8-10 July 2009
Organizers: Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University
NGO Forum Timor-Leste
Australian Volunteers International (AVI)
Charles Darwin University
Supporters: Caritas Australia Timor-Leste
AusAID
Asia Pacific Futures Research Network
Airnorth
Publications: Recommendations from Conference Participants in English and Tetun
Bilingual conference proceedings to come
This conference provided an opportunity for East Timorese and people from around the world to reflect, discuss and debate the nation-building process in Timor-Leste since 1999. In this context, nation-building in Timor-Leste is taken to mean the many different attempts since 1999 to ensure the political, economic and cultural integration of the population within the territory so as to fulfil the ambition of self rule in a stable and ongoing way.
Ten years after the 1999 vote for independence, this conference considered how nation-building is being experienced and responded to across urban and rural communities in Timor-Leste. Broadening the discussion beyond that of ‘state-building’, at the core of the conference was a consideration of the myriad ways the new republic has been ‘built’. Here ‘nation-building’ considers not only in terms of policy and programmatic initiatives but also grass roots experiences and perceptions of how Timor-Leste as a nation is seen and understood.
At this conference, nation-building was discussed in terms of what appears to be one of the most significant characteristics of contemporary Timor-Leste, namely the sharp distinction found between the urbanised capital and the rural communities where the majority of the population live. Dili has emerged as the centre for economic and political power in a way that is extraordinarily disproportionate with the remainder of the country, while rural areas often remain highly isolated and continue to be dominated by subsistence agriculture. Differences in access to services— running water and electricity, communication networks, adequate roads and transport, schooling and health—are among the more obvious differences alongside a lack of access to paid work or opportunities for business development. The distinction between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ is found in everyday discourse in Timor-Leste, where it is the norm for people to speak in oppositional terms about ‘Dili’ and the ‘foho’ (literally meaning mountain but used to refer to non-urban communities).
While acknowledging the sharp distinctions, the conference looked beyond assuming a straight forward urban/rural disconnect. Nor did it seek to understand this relationship simply from the ‘centre’. Firstly, this conference explored how rural communities have actively responded to the challenges of nation-building on their own terms. Secondly, the conference attempted to consider the ways in which the urban and the rural in Timor-Leste interconnect with one another, not just in terms of the movement of people or economic interaction, but also in terms of how national identity and culture is understood and projected.
Governance and Justice
Community Perceptions of Governance Structures and Justice Processes
Timeframe: 2008-ongoing
Researchers:
Dr Damian Grenfell
Carmenesa Moniz Noronha
Victoria Stead
Anna Trembath
Research Sites: Sub-district Venilale, Baucau district
Sub-district Fatumean, Covalima district
Sub-district Luro, Lautem district
Sub-district Dom Aleixo, Dili district
Sub-district Balibo, Bobonaro district
Funding: Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University
This project is concerned with how East Timorese communities view, understand and utilise or engage with governance structures and justice and conflict resolution processes in Timor-Leste, both customary and modern-bureaucratic. We disseminated two individual surveys in five sub-districts across Timor-Leste (see above). The research team worked in a variety of languages, including Tetun, Indonesian and local languages.
Back to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Publications and Research Outputs
. Grenfell, Damian, 'Governance, Violence and Crises in Timor-Leste: Estadu Seidauk Mai', in David Mearns, ed., Democratic Governance in Timor-Leste: Reconciling the Local and the National, Charles Darwin University Press, Darwin, 2008.
. Grenfell, Damian, Mayra Walsh, Anna Trembath, Carmenesa Moniz Noronha and Kym Holthouse, Understanding Community: Security and Sustainability in Four Aldeia in Timor-Leste (Report and Cover), The Globalism Research Centre, Melbourne, 2009 (Also available in Tetun - Report and Cover).
. Grenfell, Damian, Mayra Walsh, Carmenesa Moniz Noronha, Kym Holthouse and Anna Trembath, Community Sustainability and Security in Timor-Leste: Sarelari and Nanu, The Globalism Research Centre, Melbourne, 2008.
. 'Recommendations from the "Nation-Building Across Urban and Rural Timor-Leste" Conference', Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, 2009. (Also available in Tetun)
|
|
   |
 |
| Globalism Research Centre ©Copyright
2009 |
|
