The research leader of Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia, Professor Stefan Amirell, has received a grant from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University to further develop and expand the project’s open-access treaty database.
The funding will support the next major phase of the project: transforming the database into a comprehensive research resource for treaties concluded by Southeast Asian polities during the long nineteenth century. While the database currently contains around 200 fully documented records, the project team has identified approximately 1,500 treaties from the period 1800–1899 that will eventually be incorporated, complete with standardized metadata on treaty parties, dates, places, languages, and writing systems. A selected number of treaties will also be made available in full text in both Asian and European versions.
By making a much larger body of treaty material discoverable and accessible, the project will create an important new resource for researchers interested in diplomacy, state formation, colonial expansion, and international law in Southeast Asia and beyond.
