Study title

This includes ethnographic data from participant observation carried out in Timor-Leste between 2015 and 2017, shown as draft ethnographic narratives, fieldnotes developed in ethnographic form, and undeveloped fieldnotes. The fieldnotes cover general information on the oil and gas infrastructure project and research carried out in the capital city Dili, as well as ethnographic data from ‘affected communities’ in Suai, Betano and Beaco. The descriptions include different ideas about the significance of the environment and how communities relate to the landscape they inhabit. It also contains descriptions of historical forms of oil exploration along the south coast and descriptions of community consultations that took place along the south coast.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. In 2011, the East Timorese government initiated the building of a large infrastructure 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 dreams of sudden societal transformations. The Petroleum Corridor is the centrepiece of the national Strategic Development Plan for...