Participation, Authority, and Distributive Equity in East Timorese Development

Abstract

The anthropology of development seeks to understand the complex encounter between international and national development regimes and local patterns of livelihood and being. As science and development move objects, at once material and discursive, through the networks of the social to reach “impoverished” others, local groups reach out to development actors to evaluate and appropriate their resources and accept or redirect those efforts. In a political interplay of disciplinary measures and localizing translations, development projects are re-invented, or aspects thereof refused, just as development actors strain to keep projects on track. With input from science and technology studies, this article explores the participatory, authoritative, and distributive dimensions to agricultural development in East Timor. Across four cases studies—a dairy, a greenhouse, a seed development program, and a permanent farming initiative—the politics of projects are compared and discussed within the broader context of colonial and postcolonial development. The article is based on a total of 1 year of fieldwork conducted in 2003, 2008, and 2009.

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