{"id":4762,"date":"2020-08-17T06:57:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T06:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/?p=4762"},"modified":"2020-08-17T06:57:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T06:57:03","slug":"do-remittances-lead-to-dependency-the-case-of-timor-leste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/2020\/08\/17\/do-remittances-lead-to-dependency-the-case-of-timor-leste\/","title":{"rendered":"Do remittances lead to dependency? The case of Timor-Leste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Michael Rose<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In little more than ten years Australia\u2019s\nSeasonal Worker Programme (SWP) has gone from nothing to an essential element\nof how Australia feeds itself. Around 12,000 people from Timor-Leste and\nPacific Island countries participated in 2018\u20132019, and across the region\npeople are clamouring to join. Although the program, like everything else to do\nwith international movement, now sits in a state of anxious stasis, there is\nevery reason to believe that it will continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its popularity and obvious benefits\nfor both employers and workers, among some academics and policymakers\nenthusiasm for the program has been qualified. Some have gone so far as to\nraise concerns that remittances might foster a state of \u2018dependence\u2019,\nencouraging people to give up their previous livelihood strategies in favour of\nwaiting passively for money from abroad. Others argue that to avoid this and\nreach its full potential, the labour sending aspect of the SWP needs to be\nundertaken in parallel with efforts to ensure that funds earned through it are\nused on something \u2018productive\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such perspectives are certainly worthy of\nconsideration, but, at least in the case of Timor-Leste, miss an essential\nreality. There the SWP, like the other Timorese livelihood strategies that\nanthropologists have described extensively over the past half-century or so,\nsits within the encompassing life system that is the Timorese extended family.\nAlthough this way of being in the world has, historically, been a politically\nand economically subaltern position, it has also evinced extraordinary\nresilience and adaptability, and continues to be central to how most Timorese\nthink about work and wealth today. Admittedly, for a foreign observer thinking\nabout labour mobility this may be somewhat difficult to perceive \u2013 you can\u2019t\nGoogle it and it won\u2019t show up in a survey alone \u2013 but it aligns with both the\nethnographic literature and plainly observable reality of quotidian life in\nTimor\u2019s villages. The socio-economic impact of the SWP in Timor is an essential\nfield of research, but it must not ignore the primary mechanism that mediates\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continuing importance of the Timorese\nfamily\/clan to contemporary governance and livelihood seeking in Timor is a\nstudy in itself but the basics are simple enough. Life for most in Timor is\nordered by their position within a network of kin. The nature and extent of\nthese networks vary from place to place but are generally characterised by\nritual exchange between \u2018bride taking\u2019 and \u2018bride giving\u2019 families (fetosan and\nunmane), patronage relationships, the offering of tribute to common ancestors,\nand an encompassing ethic of intragroup mutual aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the SWP and its development\nimpact, it is this last aspect of mutual aid that is most salient. Within their\nextended family Timorese are, in theory, assured of somewhere to be, something\nto eat, and something to do, and in return are expected to give back what they\ncan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expression of this system has shifted\nalong with Timor\u2019s economic, ecological and political circumstances, but it\nremains important. Professor of Anthropology Andrew McWilliam has argued this\nexplicitly, going so far as to describe people within the Timorese diaspora in\nthe United Kingdom whose globe spanning work is integrated into local\nframeworks as \u2018customary moderns\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In thinking about what this might mean for\nthe SWP\u2019s impact on development in Timor the key point is that now, as in the\npast, the Timorese extended family is a system that seeks to advance the social\nstatus, productive capacity, and wellbeing of its members. Both my own\nobservations over a year of speaking to returned SWP workers, and the published\nresearch, suggest that this principle is indeed guiding how people use remitted\nfunds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returned workers and their communities build healthier houses, buy new farming and transport equipment, send children to school and siblings to university (often in Indonesia), purchase phones to stay better connected with the world, expand household enterprises, and invest in ritual gifting and exchange. This is anything but passive consumption, and gestures to the utility of the SWP as an engine for economic diversification, not dependence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Caption: Family from Oecussi, Timor-Leste, gather around the altar they use to pay homage to their ancestors (hau mone) at the feast of the new corn (Michael Rose) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the past the ability of the Timorese\nextended family to build the capacity of its members to act in the outside\nworld was limited by geographical isolation, lack of access to outside capital,\nand the concentration of risk in a single economic activity, specifically\nsubsistence agriculture, that made innovation risky and kept people very poor.\nThe rise of labour migration as a livelihood strategy loosens these\nconstraints. While it is true that no country has ever become rich off labour\nmobility alone, an extended family hooked into income from abroad is likely\nbetter educated, better fed, less anxious about their subsistence, and more\nworldly. The proliferation of such households can only increase Timor\u2019s\nprospects in decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people of Timor-Leste, though best\nknown to the outside world for their struggles with war and poverty, have a\nlong history of acting collectively to advance their own interests using the\nresources at hand. The SWP represents a new sort of opportunity, but it is\nclear that the same collective frameworks that have served Timor well in the\npast are being adapted to take advantage of it. From an Australian perspective\nthe best thing we can do is simply ensure that the SWP continues to grow and as\nmany can benefit from it as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*(This\u00a0article\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0Devpolicy Blog (devpolicy.org), from the Development Policy Centre at The Australian National University. Dr Mike Rose is a Research Fellow at the Development Policy Centre)<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Rose In little more than ten years Australia\u2019s Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) has gone from nothing to an essential element of how Australia feeds itself. Around 12,000 people from Timor-Leste and Pacific Island countries participated in 2018\u20132019, and across the region people are clamouring to join. Although the program, like everything else to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analisa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t