SciPost Submission Page
Political or environmental refugees? Re-examining the flight of the Vietnamese boat people, 1975-1995
by Saphia Fleury
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Saphia Fleury |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202412_00012v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2025-03-27 |
| Date submitted: | 2025-03-13 15:04 |
| Submitted by: | Fleury, Saphia |
| Submitted to: | Migration Politics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Political Science |
| Specialties: |
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Abstract
This paper examines ecocide in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1954 to 1975) and the extent to which it drove the ‘boat people’ mass migration from Vietnam from 1975 to the mid-1990s. The exodus has become an archetype of a ‘political’ refugee flow, based on a Western Cold War narrative of people fleeing en masse from the persecution of an autocratic Communist regime. This paper challenges this assumption, showing how the interplay of environmental factors with political and military decisions contributed to the post-war exodus. These findings are reached through the analysis of historical primary sources as well as 229 oral history interviews, some 40 per cent of which were conducted with former child refugees. The implications have contemporary relevance because modern migration flows are frequently mixed, and climate change is further complicating the reasons that people leave their homes and their ability to access asylum. The conclusion argues that ecocide can, in some contexts, be considered a form of persecution for the purpose of refugee determination.
List of changes
Response to reviewers’ reports on Vietnam paper
Ecocide
The hitherto undocumented role of ecocide in some boat peoples’ migration remains the central argument of my paper. However, to give the paper contemporary (rather than merely historical) relevance (something that is praised by Report 1 (R1)), I show how environmentally related persecution exists and should be considered to be just as important as other forms of persecution under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
R2 states that “ the Refugee Convention does not consider environmental factors”. This is not quite correct. The Refugee Convention neither rules in nor out environmental factors as a cause/outcome of persecution. I tackle this head-on in the Introduction (section 1.1), to which I have also added extra explanatory material.
My article shows that ecocide can both be a form of persecution (in this case by South Vietnam and the USA) and also form the conditions in which persecution is perpetrated (in this case by the post-war reunification government of Vietnam).
Thus, I have maintained the argument that ecocide is a form of persecution and is thus a contributing factor in eligibility for refugee status for certain groups. I have also added this focus to the Abstract.
I have addressed comments by all three reviewers that ecocide needs more conceptual grounding in the article and should be addressed throughout, including in the Abstract. I have added a new section on “Ecocide” to section 1.2 - scope and terminology, to further elaborate on the usefulness of the concept of ecocide to my argument. I have also outlined my argument in relation to legal counterarguments in section 1.1. Given the word count restrictions, these new sections are short and elsewhere in the article this is a case of being more precise with the language of ecocide rather than providing further, lengthy theoretical discussion of the term.
In the Conclusion, I have added a short paragraph on the evolution of the definition of persecution to include ecocide, and explained that this paper is not an attempt to rewrite the Refugee Convention or provide lengthy legal arguments, but rather the presentation of a relevant case study to encourage an evolving approach to the Convention’s implementation.
Child migrants
All three reviewers raise questions on the validity of the focus on child migrants. This focus was retained after detailed discussion during the residency process with numerous peers and other reviewers, in which I explained the unique importance of children’s voices in migration studies.
To respond to reviewers’ confusion on this topic, however, I have tried to provide more information in the article as to the importance of this focus. This includes new text reminding the reader of the child-centred approach throughout the paper, and additional literature cited in section 2.2.2 to back up my claims. I have also foregrounded the issue of children’s testimonies in the Abstract and Introduction so that it doesn’t come as such a surprise in the methodology section.
In particular, I have added text to explain that children made up some 50% of the boat people. This should help to explain why I have tried to include a near-representative sample (approx. 40%) of children’s narratives in my study. It is not that my study focuses entirely on children’s voices, but that they are given equal space to express their individual perspectives and experiences (unlike in many other studies). I have also tried to show more clearly when I am relying on children’s voices or adult voices, by adding demographic information after each of the oral history quotes.
Data presentation and analysis
As requested by R1, I have provided more analysis of the oral history quotes where this was lacking in the Findings (section 4), and I have standardised the way they are presented in the article, including with more information about the individual speakers.
As suggested by R1, I have provided more analysis of how often the “occurrence and distinctiveness in the data” of issues connected to ecocide appear in the oral histories (see sections 4.2 and 4.3).
In the response to R1: I have deleted one reference to the Freeman & Huu quote that appeared twice, and I have provided more background information on NEZs in section 2.2.1.
To mitigate the additional words added by these changes, I have removed the paragraph from section 1.2 that described the current threats of climate change to the Mekong Delta region, and made a few other cuts elsewhere in the document.
I thank the reviewers and editor for their helpful feedback and hope these changes will suffice to render the paper acceptable for publication.
Saphia Fleury, 13 March 2025
Current status:
Editorial decision:
For Journal Migration Politics: Publish
(status: Editorial decision fixed and (if required) accepted by authors)