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Current and Recent Projects | Past Projects | Our Publications
Gender is a cross-cutting theme across all our projects. The following list represents only those projects where gender is a central theme.
Current and Recent Projects
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.
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Past Projects
Mapping the Pursuit of Gender Equality
Mapping the Pursuit of Gender Equality: Non-Government and International Agency Activity in Timor-Leste
Timeframe: October 2006 - July 2007
Researchers: Anna Trembath and Dr Damian Grenfell
Partners: The Office for the Promotion of Equality, Prime Minister's Office, Timor-Leste (now named the Secretariat of State for the Promotion of Equality)
Funding: Irish Aid Timor-Leste and the Globalism Research Centre and Global Cities Institute, RMIT University.
Publications: Final project report in English and Tetun (August 2007)
Completed in August 2007, this project delivers a comprehensive picture of how NGO and agency sectors in Timor-Leste approach gender-focused activity. The final public report (see above) systemically brings together information about the various NGOs and agencies working in the area of gender, their approaches and their projects. In addition, an analysis is made about major trajectories of gender work in Timor-Leste. It is hoped that this bilingual report (which includes a directory of organizational contacts) is an important resource for interested organizations and individuals within Timor-Leste and beyond.
In addition, the RMIT researchers provided the Office for the Promotion of Equality with an internal advisory report, as a basis upon which to strategise about future government-civil society collaborations.
Women's Forum 2005
Challenges and Possibilities: International Organizations and Women in Timor-Leste
International Forum
Storey Hall, RMIT University, Melbourne
Dates: 9-11 September 2005
Organizers: Globalism Institute (now Globalism Research Centre) Community and Regional Partnerships, RMIT University East Timorese Women's Association ETWA)
Publications: Forum report in English and Tetun
As a participative, multilingual forum, Challenges and Possibilities: International Organizations and Women in Timor-Leste drew upon the experiences and ideas of participants, including East Timorese women and representatives of international organisations, in order to explore three key issues:
1. The practices and assumptions of international organisations working with East Timorese women;
2. How East Timorese women have responded; and
3. How the international presence has impacted on women in Timor-Leste.
Participants from East Timor represented various NGOs, agencies, state bodies and community organisations. These included the Alola Foundation, AMKV (the Association of Men Against Violence), the Asia-Pacific Support Collective Timor-Leste, the Australia-East Timor Community Water Supply and Sanitation Project (CWSSP), Caritas Australia, Concern Worldwide, the East Timor NGO Forum, Fokupers, Friends of Baucau Buka Hatene Centre, the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), KOVEFOKTIL (tais weaving cooperative), the Office for the Promotion of Equality, Oxfam Australia and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Participants from Australia included members of civil society organisations, East Timorese diaspora organisations, aid and development agencies and local government, as well as activists, academics, students and interested members of the public.
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Our Publications and Research Outputs
. Grenfell, Damian, Anna Trembath, and Chris Scanlon, eds, Challenges and Possibilities: International Organisations and Women in Timor-Leste / Desafiu no Oportunidade: Organizasaun Internasionál no Feto iha Timor-Leste, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, October 2005 (bilingual conference report; web-based, hardcopy and two CD versions).
. Grenfell, Damian and Anna Trembath, eds, Challenges and Possibilities: International Organizations and Women in Timor-Leste, 2nd edition, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, December 2007, ISBN 978-0-64648459. (Also available in Tetun)
. 'Recommendations from the "Nation-Building Across Urban and Rural Timor-Leste" Conference', Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, 2009. (Also available in Tetun)
. Trembath, Anna and Damian Grenfell, Mapping the Pursuit of Gender Equality: Non-Government and International Agency Activity in Timor-Leste, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, and Irish Aid, Melbourne, August 2007, ISBN 978-0-646-47770-1. (Also available in Tetun)
. Trembath, Anna and Damian Grenfell, 'Oan Kiak: Women and Independence in Timor-Leste', Arena Magazine, Issue 83, June-July 2006, pp. 10-12.
. Trembath, Anna, 'Gender and Security in Timor-Leste', Presentation to Globalism Institute Seminar Series 2006, RMIT University, Melbourne, 24 May 2006.
. Trembath, Anna, 'Gender Dynamics in Timor-Leste's Security Crisis', Presentation to Second Oceanic Conference on International Studies, Melbourne University, Melbourne, 7 July 2006.
. Trembath, Anna, 'Nationalism and Gender in Timor-Leste', Presentation to School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning Research Conference, RMIT University, Melbourne, 20 August 2008.
. Trembath, Anna, 'Rethinking Gender, Security and Peace Intersections in Timor-Leste', Presentation to Understanding Timor-Leste: A Research Conference, Timor-Leste Studies Association, Dili, 3 July 2009.
. Trembath, Anna, 'Review of Independent Women: the Story of Women's Activism in East Timor', International Journal of Feminist Politics, vol. 10, no. 2, 2008, pp. 271-73.
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