This includes ethnographic data from participant observation carried out in Timor-Leste between 2015 and 2017, shown as draft ethnographic narratives, fieldnotes developed in ethnographic form, and undeveloped fieldnotes. The fieldnotes cover general information on the oil and gas infrastructure project and research carried out in the capital city Dili, as well as ethnographic data from ‘affected communities’ in Suai, Betano and Beaco. The descriptions include different ideas about the significance of the environment and how communities relate to the landscape they inhabit. It also contains descriptions of historical forms of oil exploration along the south coast and descriptions of community consultations that took place along the south coast.Timor-Leste is a small country in Southeast Asia currently facing the challenge of state-building after an exceptionally brutal occupation by Indonesia (1975-1999) and prior colonisation by Portugal. Historically, Timor has recurrently evoked El Dorado-like dreams of great resource wealth, which until recently were never realised. In 2011, the East Timorese government initiated the building of a large infrastructure complex to bring oil and gas from offshore fields in the Timor Sea to its shores. The planned scheme has given rise to a great sense of anticipation that Timor-Leste's oil wealth will facilitate the development of a modern and prosperous nation. The aim of this study is to examine these visions of the future ethnographically and to explore how public expectations are articulated in relation to pre-existing ideas about the sacred significance of the lived environment. It seeks to advance anthropological debates about resource extraction and related expectations of modernity by investigating how local logics inform national imaginaries of modernity and how government promises foster dreams of sudden societal transformations. The Petroleum Corridor is the centrepiece of the national Strategic Development Plan for 2020, and envisages the development of three industrial clusters on the thinly populated southwest coast of the country. Plans include the building of a supply base, a pipeline, a port, an oil refinery, a petrochemical complex, an LNG plant and a modern four-lane highway. Residents along the highway route and around the sites of the new facilities would be relocated to grid-planned 'new cities'. Hence despite the great sense of hope connected to the petroleum industry, concerns have been raised that affected populations will lose their land and that the planned resettlement may intensify current conflicts over land ownership. This research aims to document existing tensions over resource entitlements, information Most current social science studies approach the topic of petroleum by examining the corruption, violent conflicts, environmental destruction and social inequalities that this 'cursed' resource can engender. While these analyses are important, they tend to draw a rather absolute distinction between state-planners on the one hand, and local communities that are marginalised by these projects on the other. By contrast, the focus of this project is on the expectations and aspirations that are connected to natural resources, identifying not just the concerns that the growth of the petroleum industry creates, but also the anticipation and hope that such schemes evoke. It will do so by teasing out the differences between state and local perspectives as well as taking into account variations in attitudes among affected populations.

Ethnographic research. As is standard practice in social anthropology, research was carried out with those who agreed to participate. There was no random sampling method involved. The main criteria used for approaching participants was whether they were involved with or affected by the oil infrastructure project that is currently being implemented along the South Coast. Ethnographic methods are a qualitative research method, which involves observing and interacting with research participants in their normal environment. The research also involved participant observation, unstructured and semi-structured interviews, and participatory history workshop.