I hope this finds you well. Thought I would get in touch to
update you on what I’m up to. I’ll keep this summary to dot points.
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I’ve decided to focus on three fieldwork sites
in the east of the country (Manatuto, Baucau, and Lautem), and two in the centre/west
(Liquica and Ermera). This is based on ease of access, particularly if the weather
(rain) becomes a factor, and also on contacts I have in each of these districts.
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I am planing one long trip that will cover the
major cities in each of the eastern districts. This will probably go for almost
two weeks. I am negotiating the precise time to leave but I anticipate this
will occur around the middle of September.
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I will make separate trips to Liquica and Ermera
either before and or after this eastern trip.
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I want to do the majority of my fieldwork in the
districts within the first three months of my trip; well before the rains may
pose a problem for travelling. The three month point will be the beginning of
November.
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At this stage, I will need to leave the country
and re-enter it due to Visa requirements. I will spend a few days back in
Darwin and return by the middle of November at the latest. I have already
applied for a two month extension on my current month long visa on arrival;
this should come through early next week.
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I anticipate needing to do follow up trips into
the districts for interviews etc. I will time these based on my ability to
travel during November, December, and January.
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Whilst I am in Dili, I will continue to do
interviews here and also I plan to make time to bash out a draft of chapter
three.
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I have spent the first three weeks in Dili
catching up with my existing contacts here, and making new ones. I have a host
of interviews lined up with people who are, to varying degrees, involved in
political parties, or are engaged with issues related to the operation of
political parties in society. For example, I will be doing my first interview
Monday next week with the director of a civil society organisation that focuses
on women’s issues and representation in the parliament.
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It’s been a pretty busy time meeting people and
fine tuning my research questions. I am sticking with the framework we
discussed about gauging the degree of party institutionalism, though I am
considering ways of making my own theoretical contribution to this approach. I
am still developing this, and I’ll send you more precise details later, but I
was mulling over the role of parties in a post-conflict, post-intervention
context. The literature is fairly unanimous on the importance of
institutionalised political parties in the broader project of post-conflict
stability. While I think the framework I’m using is useful for establishing
criteria for testing party strength, I am pondering ways of expanding this in
ways that consider what kinds of identities are produced by parties; parties
may be strong but what if they produce and seek to represent and struggle for
narrowly defined identities that cause conflict? What role can parties play in
producing identities that can bring about unity and stability? – which I think
is what is fairly similar to what is going on here now in Timor. These are just
preliminary thoughts…
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I was thinking about Lia’s suggestion about how
I organise chapters five, six, and seven. I had originally planned to make them
focused on specific parties, but I think
it will be more interesting, and manageable to, to organise them according to
different thematic topics. One could be about women’s representation and role
in politics and society perhaps, or one with a focus on the political-economy
(patronage) of the country…? Anyway, I’ll keep working on this as well.
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More generally, I’m in pretty good shape. I’m
living with a local family here (Lia, I’m staying with Carmen’s brother,
Jorge). I’m getting around with taxis and walking. When it comes to district
travel, I’ll take a bus, get a lift, or borrow a vehicle.
That’s about all I can think of for the moment.
Regards, Evan
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