Speaker: Li-Li Chen (Lecturer, National University of Timor-Leste, Timor-Leste)

Title: Understanding Gender in Timor-Leste

Moderator:  Chika Obiya (CSEAS)

Abstract: Gender is a contested word in Timor-Leste, where the men-women dyad is central to it. I trace how the men–women dyad in Timor-Leste has been understood and governed across three historical periods: the late Portuguese colonial era (before 1975), the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999), and the post-independence period (after 1999). In the first period, gender relations were organised through customary systems and marriage exchanges such as barlake, where men were associated with public authority and external relations, and women with domestic work, reproduction, and important but often hidden ritual roles, producing complementary but hierarchical relations. Under occupation and armed struggle, militarised nationalism deepened expectations of male heroism and female sacrifice, even as women’s participation in the resistance temporarily stretched conventional roles and generated new forms of agency. Since 1999, the Constitution, laws, and donor-driven gender mainstreaming have formally repositioned men and women as equal citizens, while everyday life remains strongly shaped by patriarchal norms of male headship, female care work, and widespread gender-based violence. By following various understandings and shifts of the men-women dyad across time and groups, I argue that it is a layered and contested practice rather than one simply resuming or replacing another in history.

About the Speaker: Dr. Li-li Chen, lecturer, National University of Timor-Leste, is a Feminist International Relations scholar focused on Women, Peace, Security (WPS), border politics, and small-state geopolitics in Southeast Asia. Her research critically engages IR theory and policymaking through empirically grounded work in Timor-Leste and Southeast Asia, examining how global norms (e.g., UNSCR 1325, LGBT rights frameworks, geopolitics) are translated, contested, and experienced across different geopolitical contexts. Research interests include: (1) the intimate geopolitics of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and U.S. geographic strategies in small postcolonial states; (2) gendered security, migration, and governance in borderlands under China–U.S.–ASEAN pressure; (3) feminist and critical approaches to sexual normativity and governance, with implications for understanding indigenous lifeworlds in postcolonial Asia. Theoretically grounded in critical engagements of IR theory, political geography, and security studies; and methodologically employing qualitative research (life stories, ethnography, interviews) combined with critical discourse and policy analysis. Ph.D. (Political Science), University of Florida, 2018.

Contact: obiya [at] cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp (please replace [at] with @)