On the Edge: Race, Sexuality, and Childhood in Colonial Vietnam

During this lunch Lecture Christine Firpo will investigate the intersections of race, sexuality, and body culture in a case of homosexuality among mixed-race children Vietnam in the 1940s.

Christina Firpo Ph.D. is a visiting fellow at IIAS and Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian History at the History Department of CalPoly University in California, USA.

During her three month stay at IIAS, Christina Firpo has been doing research for her book manuscript ‘Abandoned’ Children into ‘Little Frenchmen’: The Removal of Mixed-Race Children in Colonial and Post-Colonial Indochina 1870-1982. This book is an in-depth investigation of the colony’s child-removal program: the motivations behind it, reception of it, and resistance to it. “Abandoned” Children into “Little Frenchmen” contends that, along with colonial fears about security and white prestige, French government officials were anxious over what they perceived as the problem of a dwindling white population in both Indochina. The French government looked to métis children to bolster the colonial French population and promote an idealized colonial racial landscape.

IIAS Lunch Lectures
One a month one of the IIAS researchers will present his/her work-in-progress in an informal setting to their colleagues and other interested attendees, followed by a lunch provided by IIAS. These lunch lectures are organized to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and to exchange thoughts.

Lunch is provided.

Registration is required

Please register by sending an email to s.a.dehue@iias.nl