Andrew McWilliam, BA, BLitt, PhD (ANU)

Senior Fellow, School of Culture, History & Language

Biographical statement

Andrew McWilliam head and shoulders

I am currently working on a number of research projects in Indonesia and East Timor. They include an ARC Discovery Project in collaboration with Daniel Fitzpatrick (Faculty of Law, ANU), 'Waiting for Law: Land, Custom and Legal Regulation in East Timor'; an ARC Discovery project with Kathy Robinson (Anthropology, CHL) entitled, 'Being Muslim in Eastern Indonesia: practice, politics and cultural diversity'; an ARC Discovery project with Sue O'Connor (ANH, CHL) exploring cultural and environmental shifts in late holocene settlement patterns of East Timor; and a Public Services Linkage Project (PSLP) grant on social and environmental assessment of mining in Sulawesi with Stephan Lorenzen (RMAP, Crawford).

Research interests

Timor ethnography, minorities and governance in Indonesia and East Timor, customary land and resource tenures, social impacts of mining and other extractive resource industries, religious practice and conversion, applied anthropology in economic development, Australian Aboriginal customary land interests and native title.

Key publications

2011 (with E.G. Traube co-editor) Land and Life in Timor-Leste: Ethnographic Essays, ANU E-Press.
2011 'Exchange and Resilience in East Timor, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI) , 17: 745-763.
2011 'Marginal Governance in the Time of Pemekaran: Case Studies from Sulawesi and West Papua', Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol 39 150-170.
2009 'The Spiritual Commons: Some immaterial aspects of community economies in eastern Indonesia'. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, v20 163-177
2008 'Fataluku Healing and Cultural Resilience in East Timor', Ethnos 73(2): 217-240
2007 'Austronesians in Linguistic Disguise: Fataluku cultural fusion in East Timor' Journal of Southeast Asian Studies Vol 38(2), 355-375.
2005. 'Houses of Resistance in East Timor: Structuring sociality in the new nation'. Anthropological Forum, 15(1):27-44.
2002. Paths of Origin: Gates of Life. A Study of Place and Precedence in Southwest Timor. Verhandelingen, 202. Leiden: KITLV Press.

Selected applied research reports

2011 Social Impact and Baseline Assessment in Northern Halmahera: Scoping study for Gosowong Gold Mining, Report to Newcrest P/L [co-author with S Lorenzen]
2010 Sulawesi Nickel Social Baseline and Community Relations: Final Report, ANU-Rio Tinto Research Partnership, [co-author with K Robinson, A Mahli and S Lorenzen].
2010 BP Tangguh LNG Project External Panel: Seventh Compliance Monitoring Visit Report. Report to GHD and the Asian Development Bank.
2009 Coastal & Marine Ecotourism Values, Issues & Opportunities on the North Coast of Timor Leste – Final Report, Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, National Directorate of Tourism, Government of Timor Leste.[co-author]
2009 Anthropological Report on Native Title Interest over Rosewood, Legune and Spirit Hills Pastoral Leases. Report to the Federal Court of Australia [Principal author with J Laurence].
2007 Ira La Laru Hydropower Project, Timor Leste: Environmental Impact Assessment: Site Verification and Sociology Findings. (2 vols). Report to the Government of Timor Leste. EPANZ & Norconsult, Dili, East Timor
2006 Striving for Good Practice: Community development in AusAID (1995-2005). Commissioned Research Paper for the Australian Agency for International Development. [Co-author with Kathryn Robinson].

Career highlights

Research anthropologist, Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (1995-2000); Technical advisor, Australian Agency for International Development (1997-2004); Research Fellow, Resource Management in the Asia Pacific Project (1999-2001); Senior /Visiting Fellow/ Affiliate, International Institute for Asian Studies (University of Leiden) 1998 & 2005, Kahin Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Cornell University 2007, Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University 2010.