2026/04/04 by Michael S. Givel, Garrett Johnson · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Indian and Buddhist Studies #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/03086534.2026.2644432
openalex publication_date 2026/04/04 · openalex created_date 2026/04/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
The practice of colonial strategy and racial discourses is a deeply intertwined process that developed in tandem, particularly during the height of traditional colonialism and empires from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. This article concludes that the discourse of ‘Orientalism’ described by Edward Said in Orientalism (1979) and the usual practice of indirect British colonial rule, in this case, solely the foreign affairs of Bhutan during the 1840s to the 1860s, evolved together to create an exception to regional and temporal trends in indirect British colonial authority. By utilising discourse analysis to examine the process of British colonialism solely in the context of Bhutan's foreign affairs, it is shown that the British opinion of the Bhutanese grew increasingly negative over the course of their colonial interactions, resulting in an ‘Orientalist’ discourse. This regionally unique aspect of ‘Orientalism’ necessitated (in the British view) a more direct colonial strategy. This article examines the development of this deviation by archival research and content analysis of key British colonial documents from the British Library's India Office Records. Specifically, the mission of Ashley Eden to Bhutan in 1863 and the Duar War of 1864 between Bhutan and Great Britain are examined closely as examples of mutual influence between racial discourse and colonial strategy.