DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

Anticipating Prosperity: A Study of Community Expectations and the Petroleum Industry in Timor-Leste

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Description

Timor-Leste is a small country in Southeast Asia currently facing the challenge of state-building after an exceptionally brutal occupation by Indonesia (1975-1999) and prior colonisation by Portugal. Historically, Timor has recurrently evoked El Dorado-like dreams of great resource wealth, which until recently were never realised. When the country re-gained independence in 2002, the government managed to secure a 50% share in revenues from its offshore oil and gas reserves that Australia had claimed. Even though negotiations with Australia are still ongoing, the East Timorese government is currently planning to build a large industrial complex to bring oil and gas from offshore fields in the Timor Sea to its shores. The planned scheme has given rise to a great sense of anticipation that Timor-Leste's oil wealth will facilitate the development of a modern and prosperous nation. The aim of this study is to examine these visions of the future ethnographically and to explore how public expectations are articulated in relation to pre-existing ideas about the sacred significance of the lived environment. It seeks to advance anthropological debates about resource extraction and related expectations of modernity by investigating how local logics inform national imaginaries of modernity and how government promises foster utopian dreams of sudden societal transformations.

Objectives

Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

East Timor