Attuning Engagement: Methodological and Affective Dimensions of a Failed Collaborative Research Project in Timor-Leste

Abstract

The intrinsic hierarchies between a researcher and her research participants in the daily business of fieldwork are often a ground for unease among academics. This unease has brought about a myriad of collaborative and participatory research methods that attempt to flatten out these power imbalances. However, constraints in the scope of academic research or uncritical good intensions bring with them the danger of a collaborative project being little more than tokenistic. It is therefore important to critically reflect on, and communicate about, our collaborative research projects. Various research participants asked me to conduct research together with them during my first fieldwork in Timor-Leste. This resonated with me as I am convinced that research should consist of an exchange of knowledge rather than an extraction of it. Consequently, I set up a collaborative research group with students from the National University of Timor-Leste as part of my doctoral fieldwork. This article is based on diary entries, field notes, and reflections written during the process of planning, implementing, and finally dismantling that collaborative research group. I explore four successive affective stages of the project: excited and expectant, inspired and energized, dispirited and disappointed, and accepting and adjusting. While discussing the methodological adjustments I made throughout these phases I reflect on the intricately related affective dimensions of this attempt at a collaborative research project.