We are a research team composed of a group of scholars studying the colonial history of anthropological research in Timor Leste from the nineteenth century to the mid-1970s. Our research covers a broad range of actors and knowledge endeavors associated with the study of the Timorese races, languages, and cultures during the modern period of the Portuguese colonization. We are interested in tracing the colonial, indigenous, and scientific dimensions of anthropological knowledge praxis in the past, and in what we […]

Conference “Crossing Histories and Ethnographies” – Lisbon – ICS-UL 1-2 July 2013 Conference POSTER click here Conference PROGRAM click here On 1-2 July 2013, it will take place at the Institute of Social of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL) and at Cinemateca Portuguesa, the closing international conference of our project. Participants will include Elizabeth Traube as keynote speaker, Claudine Friedberg and David Hicks as special speakers; and will offer papers by Gonçalo Antunes, Judith Bovensiepen, Rui Feijó, Andrew McWilliam, Ricardo […]

NEW BIOGRAPHY OF RUY CINATTI Poet, engineer, botanist, ethnologist, Ruy Cinatti was one of the most remarkable and eclectic Portuguese writers on the cultures and landscapes of Timor Leste in the twentieth-century. Click HERE to read historian Cláudia Castelo’s extensively researched biographical sketch of Ruy Cinatti, as part of our Online Dictionary of Biographies. Image credits: Ruy Cinatti in Timor. Espólio de Ruy Cinatti na Biblioteca Universitária João Paulo II, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Disponível em: http://www.snpcultura.org/fotografias/ruy_cinatti/23.jpg

CONFERENCES ON TIMOR LESTE – 2012 In 2012 and early 2013 the team has been involved in the organization of three symposia about the history and anthropology of Timor Leste. You can read about the events in the section “Conferences” of our website or download the conference programmes below. Image: Postcard Timor c. 1966. Fonte: IICT. TIMOR LESTE: MEMÓRIAS E HISTÓRIAS DA ANTROPOLOGIA Auditorio da Universidade Nacional de Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL) Dili, 4 August 2012 DOWNLOAD the conference program here. […]

TIMOR LESTE: 10 ANOS DE ESTUDOS E TESES. REFLETIR E DEVOLVER Biblioteca – Espaço Por Timor Lisbon, 17 & 18 May 2012 Timor Leste has received growing attention from Portuguese scholars since the referendum of 1999. At Portuguese universities, a number of humanities’ and social sciences’ works were produced in the course of the last ten years, including many Master and PhD theses. Many of these, however, have not been published, and thus they have little or no impact beyond […]

On this website you will find the open-access online publication of the papers presented at the Symposium Timor: Scientific Missions and Colonial Anthropology held at the Overseas Historical Archives, Lisbon, on 24 and 25 May 2011. The conference proceedings include papers by Portuguese and Timorese scholars who work on the anthropology and history of science in East Timor, during the Portuguese colonial period. Authors include Cláudia Castelo, Fernando Figueiredo, Manuel Lobato, Vítor Rosado Marques, Maria do Rosário Martins, Ana Cristina […]

During the Portuguese colonial administration of East Timor, a considerable number of articles, reports, and books were produced and published about the indigenous peoples and cultures. The research team has been surveying these publications – the majority of which have been published in Portuguese – in order to reach an overview of the Portuguese ‘colonial knowledge’ regarding Timor. These publications touch on disciplines and topics as varied as history, linguistics, biological anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, and allow one to […]

The research team is currently working on the production of an Online Dictionary of Biographies which will present brief biographical articles about some of the most significant Portuguese authors who published on the history and anthropology of East Timor in the period 1850-1975. This dictionary is expected to be a useful research resource for everyone interested in knowing more about the biographical background of those who wrote about Timor Leste in the Portuguese colonial period. Professional anthropologists and ethnographers but […]