Local Actions, Global Impact: Women's Agency in Timor-Leste and Pragmatic Indonesia-Timor-Leste Relations Through a Decolonial Lens.

This article examines the often-overlooked agency of East Timorese women in domestic peacebuilding and international diplomacy, particularly in the evolving Indonesia-Timor-Leste relationship. Applying a decolonial feminist lens, it explores how intersecting legacies of colonialism, patriarchy and post-conflict reconstruction have shaped women's roles in Timor-Leste's political and social transformation. Drawing on qualitative methods and interviews with civil society leaders, veteran activists, officials and policymakers, this article highlights how local women's organizations have been central to shaping transitional justice, institutional reform and regional engagement. It argues that grassroots mobilization and indigenous knowledge systems, when integrated into national and foreign policy processes, provide more inclusive and sustainable frameworks for peacebuilding. In linking women's activism from the resistance era to contemporary diplomacy, this study demonstrates how decolonial feminist praxis can advance more equitable post-conflict development and pragmatic international relations in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]