Leif Andrew Garinto

Leif is a cultural, print, and literary historian and doctoral student at the Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, SOAS University of London, with a research focus on South East Asia.

His PhD thesis examines the historical persistence and evolving roles of English in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines across the intersecting domains of education, publishing, and literary writing. Rather than treating English as colonial residue or a neutral globalising force, his thesis argues that English in these contexts has undergone a series of strategic reconfigurations shaped by imperial legacies, postcolonial nationalism, developmentalism, class formation, and neoliberalism. Challenging binary framings of English as either imperial imposition or cosmopolitan empowerment, the thesis engages with but moves beyond dominant postcolonial theoretical paradigms, reworking frameworks such as Homi K. Bhabha's concepts of mimicry and the third space, and Chen Kuan-hsing's call to reconceptualise "Asia as method," through a grounded comparative methodology attentive to South East Asia's specific linguistic, political, and institutional configurations.

Drawing on infrastructure theory, postcolonial studies, sociolinguistics, and cultural political economy, the thesis conceptualises English as a mutable infrastructure: a shifting medium of governance, aspiration, resistance, and cultural production. Building on Brian Larkin's conception of infrastructure as the material and institutional systems that enable circulation and value, the thesis examines how English becomes embedded in curricula and teacher training policies, print and distribution networks, and literary circuits shaped by editorial institutions and cultural policy. Structured around nine case studies spanning the colonial, postcolonial, and contemporary periods, the thesis reveals how English has served as a mechanism for elite reproduction, a conduit of state ideology, and a medium of literary experimentation and cultural negotiation that contributes to wider debates on language politics, decolonisation, and knowledge production from the perspective of South East Asia.

Leif's broader research interests include linguistic landscapes, print and literary history, media and popular culture, and the intersections of language with gender, class, and power in South East Asia. He received the SOAS Research Studentship award from 2022 to 2025.