Seminar | Levelling bias in treaty-making: A critical discourse analysis of Brunei’s treaties | Badriyah Yusof
January 28 @ 15:30 - 17:00
The process of treaty-making in Southeast Asia, especially during the period of foreign intervention, presents a complex historical narrative marked by power imbalances and inherent biases due to the asymmetrical nature of negotiations. Such asymmetry, stemming from differences in schemata and cultures, is often manipulated as a leveraging tool to gain access to local dominions and resources, grant extraterritorial rights to colonial powers, and restrict the autonomy of the local sovereignties.
Treaties, as culminations of negotiations, contestations, and compromises, serve as critical sites where these power asymmetries are encoded through linguistic representations, ranging from the selection of semantics and syntactic structures to the discursive practices of framing and adherence to conventions, often based on western epistemes and norms. Within the framework of critical discourse studies, this linguistic construction can be understood as a manifestation of a broader social practice aimed at legitimizing hegemony and exerting control over subordinate parties.
This talk examines these dynamics through a series of treaties that marked major political shifts in Brunei-British relations between 1846 and 1982. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis, I explore how language, as an integral part of discursive and social practices, shapes the meaning-making process in these treaties. This approach reveals not only how cultural biases are reflected in treaty-making processes but also how they continue to influence subsequent interpretations.
Ultimately, this talk seeks not only to contribute to a more nuanced comprehension of how language can be used to reflect and mitigate the bias embedded in treaty making, but also how this social practice contributes to the construction of colonial power structures and eventually the postcolonial realities in Southeast Asia.
Speaker
Badriyah Yusof is a linguist with an academic background in Critical Discourse Studies, Translation Studies and General Linguistics from the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (BA), the University of East Anglia (MA), and the University of Reading (PhD). Her research primarily delves into developing alternative methodologies and interpretations to shed light on power dynamics and its representations in political texts over time; and mapping out Brunei’s translation landscape as part of its Cultural Creative/ Heritage Industry.
Her current project explores the deconstruction of elites’ narratives such as Shaer Rakis, produced during British intervention in Brunei (1847-1984), and how they contribute to the linguistics formulation of a protectorate discourse in Brunei. Badriyah is an assistant professor in Malay Language and Linguistics at FASS UBD and is an appointed member of Jawatankuasa Tetap Bahasa Melayu Brunei Darussalam. She was recently featured as a rising scholar in the MABBIM Bulletin, published by the Language Council for Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Moderator
Kathryn Wellen is a researcher at KTLV. She is a historian of Southeast Asia specialized in South Sulawesi. Her innovative methodology for interrogating indigenous sources resulted in the development of a new paradigm for early Bugis history which reconciles the historical, archaeological and mythological records.
Format, date, time & venue
This seminar is a hybrid event and will be held in the conference room of KITLV, Herta Mohr building, room 1.30, Witte Singel 27 A, Leiden and online via Zoom, on Tuesday 28 January from 15.30 – 17.00 PM (CET).
Registration
If you want to join this seminar on location, please register via: [email protected].
If you wish to join this seminar online, please register here.
Image
Signing of the Anglo-Brunei Treaty 23 October 1844 at the Court of the Sultan of Borneo.
Source: Borneo and the Indian Archipelago. Author: Frank Samuel Marryat (1826-1855)
