Leif Andrew Garinto

Key information

- Roles
- School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics PhD researcher
- Qualifications
-
BA English Studies: Anglo-American Literature, University of the Philippines, Diliman
MA English Studies: Anglo-American Literature, University of the Philippines, Diliman - Email address
- lg37@soas.ac.uk
- Thesis title
- English as infrastructure in postcolonial Anglophone South East Asia
- Internal Supervisors
- Dr Ben Murtagh & Dr Mulaika Hijjas
Biography
Leif is a cultural, print, and literary historian, and currently a PhD student at the Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies, SOAS University of London, with a research focus on South East Asia.
He was previously with the faculty of the Department of English and Applied Linguistics and the Department of Literature at De La Salle University, Philippines. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. His master's thesis, which traced the cultural, material and literary history of José Rizal's Noli me tángere, received the best thesis award and was published in the journal Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints. Leif is a recipient of the SOAS Research Studentship, awarded from 2022 to 2025.
His PhD thesis examines the shifting roles of English in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines through its circulation in education, publishing, and literary writing. Rather than viewing English as either colonial residue or globalising force, it argues that English has been strategically reconfigured across historical periods--shaped by imperial legacies, postcolonial nationalism, developmentalism, class formation, and neoliberalism. Across nine case studies spanning colonial, postcolonial, and contemporary contexts, the thesis traces how English has been mobilised, contested, and resignified within specific institutional settings in Anglophone South East Asia.
Drawing on infrastructure theory, postcolonial studies, and cultural political economy, the thesis conceptualises English as a mutable infrastructure: a medium through which governance, aspiration, resistance, and cultural production are organised and expressed. Building on Brian Larkin’s notion of infrastructure as systems that enable circulation and value, the thesis examines how English becomes embedded in educational curricula, publishing networks, and literary circuits in the region, highlighting its role in both reproducing and reworking power across institutions.
Beyond his current PhD project, Leif's other research interests include sociolinguistics in South East Asia, with a particular focus on linguistic landscapes as dynamic sites where multilingualism, identity, and state ideologies are negotiated in everyday life. He is also interested in how language practices and representations intersect with broader structures of power, examining the roles of gender, class, and social hierarchy in shaping linguistic and cultural expression across the region, and how linguistic forms reflect, reinforce, or resist dominant narratives and social norms.