ABOUT
Built for students, teachers, researchers and the general public, Boat People History offers the results of a research project, selected archival documents, and other selected content on the 1979 Indochinese refugee crisis and its representations.
This website does not focus on testimonies, lived experiences, or the actual quantification and description of displacement and the resettlement. Instead, the purpose of this website is to analyze how states, institutions and the general public interpreted this refugee crisis and how these conflicting representations influenced the effectiveness of refugee protection.
How To Use This Website
This website is part of multiple communication platforms which help users engage with the Indochinese refugee crisis at different levels.
A POSTER
A 36×48 inches POSTER, serves as a first approach to the research project. It provides a visual overview of the main research question and basic findings of this research project. QR codes on the poster redirect people to this website, which can be used for a more detailed or complete analysis of the crisis.
A JOURNAL ARTICLE
A journal article summarizes the main scientific contribution of this research project to the historiography. Both works in refugee studies and Cold War studies have tended to consider the refugee crisis and the Third Indochina War as a subplot in the background. This article focuses on the making of the 1979 Conference on Southeast Asian refugees. It shows that the humanitarian and political crises were closely related because states used refugee protection as a weapon at the diplomatic level.
THIS WEBSITE
This online platform provides a more detailed analysis. The RESEARCH PROJECT section provides an overview of the research project and its main research findings.
Specialists of refugee studies and Cold War studies can also find a more detailed analysis in the TIMELINE, which proposes twelve articles on the main events leading to the 1979 conference.
Teachers and students can use the RESOURCES, which propose further readings and lesson plans.
Researchers can also use the ARCHIVES section which gives access to a selected list of archives related to the 1979 Conference on the Indochinese refugees, digitized from two collections: The UN Secretary Kurt Waldheim Collection from the United Nations Archives in New York City, and the International Conference funds from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Archives in Geneva.
Research Team
PHI-VÂN NGUYEN, Assistant Professor, Principal Investigator.
Phi-Vân Nguyen is a History Professor at the Université de Saint-Boniface. Her research interests focus on war, migration, religion and politics. Her work has been published in The Journal of Asian Studies, French Colonial History and SOJOURN.
SIMON BOILY, Undergraduate Student, Research Assistant.
Simon Boily is currently finishing his B.A. at the Université de Saint-Boniface. He translated the articles in the Research Project section of this website to its French version.
GIULIANO BENIAMINO FLERI, Graduate Student, Research Assistant.
Giuliano Beniamino Fleri is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He assisted in digitizing the UNHCR archives into pdf files.
YANKO KALEM, Undergraduate Student, Research Assistant.
Yanko Kalem is currently finishing his B.A. at the Université de Saint-Boniface. He helped translate into French key documents of the UNHCR and UN archives.
HANNAH KLOS, Undergraduate Student, Research Assistant.
Hannah Klos is an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Education of the Université de Saint-Boniface. She was responsible for the data collection and analysis of The Globe and Mail.
CONNOR MCCORRIE, Undergraduate Student, Research Assistant.
Connor McCorrie is an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Arts of the Université de Saint-Boniface. He undertook the meticulous task of indexing the digitized archives and establishing a detailed description of each pdf file.
SOPHIE SICKERT, Undergraduate Student, Research Assistant.
Sophie Sickert is an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Arts of the Université de Saint-Boniface. She carried out the data collection and analysis of The New York Times.
AMINE TASMANY, College Student, Multimedia Assistant.
Amine Tasmany studies Multimedia at the Technical and Professional School of Université de Saint-Boniface. He was in charge of developing the website, filming and editing the interviews.
Funding
The Boat People History Project has been generously funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Insight Grant 435-2019-0363. The Université de Saint-Boniface also contributed by providing teaching releases to carry out this research project.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Mike Molloy and Chris Goscha for their comments on the research project, as well as Jean Vouillon, Frédéric Jubinville, and Alain Delannoy for their countless suggestions on the design and development of the poster, interviews, and the website.
How This Site Was Made
SUMMER 2019
- UNHCR archives digitized, Analysis of the archives
- Research team recruited, data collection in the two newspapers
- Early website development
FALL 2019
- Newspaper analysis
- Presentation of the preliminary results
- Poster created
- Website development
- Video Clip shooting
WINTER 2020
- Newspaper analysis completed
- Presentations of research results at the Association canadienne pour le savoir en français, and Metropolis Canada in Winnipeg (cancelled due to the CoVid19 pandemic)
- Website development
- Video clips postproduction
SPRING-SUMMER 2020
- Preparing research papers for the Metropolis’ ebook
- Website sent out to reviewers
- Revisions of all website articles
- Translation of the website from English to French
CMS, THEME, BUILDER
This website has been made using wordpress as a CMS. Phlox was used as the theme, and Elementor Pro helped with the creation of each page.
PLUGINS
Also, we would like to thank all of the web developers which created and improved a plethora of premium and free plugins, without which the creation of this website would have been impossible: Polylang, Relevanssi Premium, PdfJsViewer, UpDraftPlus, Easy Footnotes, PageCategory.
We also used Storymap JS, developed by Northwestern University Knight Lab.
Putting together this website would not have been possible without years of research and content management development, which have completely changed how we communicate ideas, stories, and research findings.
How To Use the Content of this Website
Any reproduction of the photographs is prohibited.
Any use of the infographics and text should properly refer the to this website as the source.
Any use of the archival material must cite the documents using their full reference as it exists within the UNHCR and UN ARMS catalogue.