Members of the East Timorese diaspora in Australia took, appeared in and collected photographs of their activities during the campaign for independence from Indonesian rule (1975-99). Through photographs, they aimed to educate the Australian public about East Timor and the Australian government’s support for the Indonesian annexation, but they also stored the images as mementos of their own involvement in the struggle. This paper examines the uses of such photographs in the context of an independent Timor-Leste, reflecting, for example, on how diasporic narrators use such photographs in oral history interviews. It analyses the possibilities for reparative work that these images could perform by incorporating the multigenerational stories of the diaspora, thereby fostering a more inclusive and pluralist nationalism in both Australia and Timor-Leste.

Vannessa Hearman is a historian of Southeast Asia and Senior Lecturer in History at Curtin University in Western Australia. She is researching the history and remembrance of East Timorese migration to Australia and contemporary artistic production in Timor-Leste, supported by funding from the Australian Research Council. This paper relates to her project on East Timorese migration and her research interest in examining the uses of visual imagery in Timor-Leste’s campaign for independence and the implications for citizenship, nationalism and belonging in Timor-Leste.