Dili
Timor-LesteSurikmas and Comoro
The Role of Neighborhoods in the City’s Environmental Sustainability
Emerging Issues
Flood in Dili, March 2020 (Photo Source: The Watcher, 2020³)
How do communities’ everyday practices intersect with city-wide environmental issues? To what extent do everyday practices play a role in adapting to, mitigating, and/or perpetuating environmental challenges? What are possibilities of local, autonomous approaches in neighborhoods to alleviate environmental challenges and, as a result, improve public health in the neighborhood and the city? How are various stakeholders within and from outside neighborhoods involved in these approaches? In addressing these questions, the research team will apply ethnographic approaches in several flood-prone neighborhoods in Dili, namely Surikmas and Comoro.
Neighbourhood-Community-City-State Relationships
Left: Aerial photo of Comoro, Dili; Right: Aerial photo of Surikmas, Dili (Photo Source: Google Maps, 2022)
Dili city is the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. Dili covers an area of about 170 square kilometers, with a population of approximately 250,000 people. The population has a significant share of migrants from different territories of Timor-Leste and from various countries, both who migrated to Dili during the Portuguese period, during the Indonesian invasion and independence of Timor-Leste in May 2002, but the city is ethnically segregated. The Becora area, for example, are inhabited by the people of Bobonaro and Baucau Municipalities. Vila Verde has mixed middle class to upper middle class residents, while Farol has residential compounds of government, state officials, and diplomats. Government offices are in the core of Dili or alongside the coast, while several strategic places in Hudi, Laran, Audian, Fatuhada, Comoro, Tasi Tolu and Becora are dominated by businesses of the Chinese ethnic group.
Dili City forms a valley flanked by hills to the south and east, is beset by various problems, including educational issues, economy, health, unemployment problems, wide gap between rich and poor. Amidst these underlying social issues, Dili City is often hit by dangerous floods, especially during the rainy season, in spite of government interventions for flood alleviation. Surikmas and Comoro areas are frequently flooded and highly populated, and the communities of both neighborhoods have voiced out their concerns of being inundated by floods during the rainy season.
Relevance to SEANNET Collective
Comoro River in Dry Season (Photo Source; Guterres, 2021)
Studying the relationship between neighborhood-level dynamics and city-wide issue of flooding is important for at least two reasons. Firstly, there has not been ethnographic studies in Surikmas and Comoro as flood-prone, highly populated areas. There have been several studies on the land ownership status, clean water, and sanitation by some international and local researchers but those studies tended to confine their method by using questionnaires and other secondary data. While there has been indications in other cities of the importance of in-depth knowledge of community life in flood-prone neighborhoods in order to effectively address the issue, little is known on how flooding interacts with and shapes communities’ everyday practices in Surikmas and Comoro. Secondly, ethnographic study of Surikmas and Comoro in the SEANNET framework would be thre first time that the local community will be participated actively in the whole research process.
The result of study is potentially used for further public advocacy as well as for the formulation of local government policies to establish community-engage approaches in flood mitigation, adaptation, and in the improvement for public health from the perspective of neighborhoods.
Research Focus and MethodologyThe objective of the research is to learn together with the community on how their everyday practices intersect with city-wide environmental issues, to explore possibilities of local, autonomous approaches in alleviating flooding and improving public health, as well as to examine collaborative approaches across neighborhoods and stakeholders. For example, a possible approach is through active involvement in group discussions on waste management, understanding current practices, how these practices have been built through time as their own way of solving waste problem in their community, and how these practices relate to the whole city of Dili. In such activity, communities and researchers would understand better the relationship between everyday practices in the neighborhood and the flooding issue of the whole city and the environmental ecosystems. Through this approach, communities can potentially be involved to explore their own potentials to construct self-regulations, think about ideas for collaborative waste management within and across neighborhoods, among others. Such approach would also help to inform policymakers on why flood alleviation interventions from the government have not worked well thus far.
The research method used in this study is a participatory method in the form of Focus Group Discussions (FGD), in-depth interviews, seminars, roundtable discussions involving members of the local community to hear their everyday experiences and how they might relate to flooding. Specific research questions will be formulated together with the community, keeping in mind the process of participatory approach for sustainable approaches in addressing the environmental and public health issues. The research will abide to the process of empowerment, in which communities take ownership in environmental protection and public health and to play a role in improving the situation.