Imagining ethnography : reflections on fieldwork in Lautem

Ethnographic fieldwork is a learned skill that improves with practice and one's ability to develop professional friendships and forms of cultural fluency, in order to generate the questions on which the whole interpretive endeavour rests. Despite the significant contextual differences between East and West Timor, due to contrasting historical and political trajectories and a rich ethno-linguistic diversity, the regions nevertheless share much in common. This includes the often precarious material conditions of life founded on extensive swidden agriculture and the seasonal uncertainties of the monsoon tropics; in the striking variations on thatched, platform house traditions, and in the complex ritual exchanges that mark life cycle events and sustain healthy inter-generational relationships.