Deborah Cummins
Deborah Cummins is the Founder and Director of Bridging Peoples: www.bridgingpeoples.com. She has worked as a university lecturer and researcher in Timor-Leste and Australia, and consultant and trainer in Timor-Leste and with Aboriginal Australian communities. She has published widely on various issues of local governance, including the interaction of customary and state-based governance, democratisation, women's leadership and community development. She loves a good cup of hot Timorese coffee.
Subjects: Anthropology - Soc Sci, Asian Studies
Biography
Dr Deborah Cummins is the Director of Bridging Peoples. Before then she worked as Research, Policy and Governance Specialist at The Asia Foundation. She has worked as a consultant and trainer on local governance issues in Timor-Leste, and a visiting lecturer and researcher at the Department of Community Development at the National University of Timor-Leste (UNTL). In Australia, she has been a lecturer in Development Studies and course coordinator in Public Policy at the University of Newcastle and the University of New South Wales, and also worked for a number of years for Reconciliation Australia, an NGO promoting Indigenous reconciliation in Australia. She has published widely on various issues of local-level governance in Timor-Leste, including the interaction of customary and state-based governance, democratisation, women's leadership and community development.Education
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BA (Philosophy) (Honours), University of Melbourne, 1999
Bachelor of Laws (Honours), University of Melbourne, 2000
PhD (Governance in Timor-Leste), University of NSW, 2010
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Cross-cultural community development in postcolonial communities, community-sensitive approaches to development, women's leadership, democratisation, human rights.
Websites
Books
Articles
State of Hybridity: Lessons in Institutionalism from a Local Perspective
Published: Mar 03, 2013 by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs
Authors: Deborah Cummins
Subjects:
Asian Studies
This article examines the applicability of classic institutional theory in the postcolonial, community context. Drawing on community-based research conducted over a number of years in Timor-Leste, the author argues that institutional theory needs to be re-imagined in order to properly account for co-existing customary and state-based institutions, laws and worldviews.