iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

📖 The article is out now. I’m proud of Robbe’s original work, proud of what we made of it, and glad this story is no longer stuck in a to-do folder. 🔗 academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-... 📬 Want a copy? DM me — free author copies are on the way.

academic.oup.com

‘Chileans ex Romania’: Resettlement, Containment, and the Limits of UNHCR’s Global Ambitions during the Cold War

Abstract. After Pinochet’s military coup in 1973, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) coordinated the resettlement of thousands of re

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Then came the production saga. The article was delayed for months due to a photo rights issue. Huge thanks to #UNHCR archives & photo staff, who pulled through despite budget cuts.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

…until Prague 2025. An invitation from Michal Frankl to present at the #UnlikelyRefuge conference gave us the push we needed. We rewrote, resubmitted — and the article was accepted without further revisions.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Major revisions followed. Reviewers asked for new archival work. So in summer 2022, heavily pregnant, I went back to UNHCR Archives Geneva — and found new gems. Then: baby pause. Research stalled.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

*How it started…* This paper began as Robbe’s undergraduate thesis, written during the COVID lockdown using a digital archival corpus I’d assembled — almost as if I’d predicted the closures. We submitted it cautiously. But the story had legs.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

*What’s it about?* After Pinochet’s 1973 coup, over 1,500 Chilean refugees were resettled in Ceaușescu’s Romania — only to flee again within a few years. We trace their “second escape” and examine how UNHCR prioritized diplomacy over protection in its response.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

🌍 New article out now! “Chileans ex Romania”: Resettlement, Containment and the Limits of UNHCR’s Global Ambitions during the Cold War Co-authored with Robbe Himpe Journal of Refugee Studies

Two pages from the UNHCR publication “El Refugio. Refugees from Chile”, this section shows four pictures, including one of a classroom, one of a blue collar worker on the job, one of a pregnant woman, and one of a family with children relaxing in the park. The accompanying text highlights the children born to Chilean–Romanian couples as evidence of successful integration. Full reference: UNHCR Record and Archives Section, Fonds 10c: Public Information; Series: Publications 1950–Present; Subseries 4: Reports 1972–1975; Item: UNHCR Report: El Refugio – Refugees from Chile, (10c/PUB/4-1975/9), Autumn 1975, p.24-25.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

19 jaar geleden heb ik daar een jaar gewoond als AFS student. So, tell me more! (Ook gewoon uit ordinaire historische interesse, hoor 😉)

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Reposted by Sara Cosemans

Patrick Galey @patrickgaley.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Your weekly reminder that voter "concern" with immigration doesn't correspond to actual immigration levels. It corresponds to the amount of coverage the media gives immigration. This an entirely self-fulfilling mess, and it is entirely pointless.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

In mijn nieuwste @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social column duik ik als historica in het ontstaan van het vluchtelingenverdrag. Over hoe het universeel werd gemaakt door het Globale Zuiden, en waarom zelfs de minimale bescherming die het biedt vandaag als te veel wordt gezien.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Nicole De Moor – jarenlang verantwoordelijk voor een opvangcrisis die duizenden mensen in de kou zette – wil nu VN-Vluchtelingencommissaris worden. Het is alsof een pyromaan chef brandveiligheid wil worden. www.sampol.be/2025/05/unhc... #UNHCR #vluchtelingen #DeMoor #asielbeleid #SAMPOL

sampol.be

UNHCR verdient beter dan Nicole De Moor

Hoe kan iemand die liever meubels laat verkopen dan mensen een bed en een warme maaltijd te bieden, geloofwaardig het Vluchtelingenverdrag verdedigen als VN Hoge Commissaris voor de Vluchtelingen?

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Als het over migratiebeleid gaat, zijn er weinig dingen die mij tegenwoordig nog verbazen, maar onlangs viel ik toch nog eens van mijn stoel. Nicole De Moor stelde zich kandidaat als ... (drum roll) VN Hoge Commissaris voor de Vluchtelingen. Dat is zo potsierlijk dat ik er een stukje over schreef.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Voila, mijn eerste stukje voor SAMPOL voor dit seizoen!

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Ik was al zo lang niet meer op Bluesky geweest en kwam even terug voor schaamteloze zelfpromotie, maar mannekes, wat lijkt dit op Twitter (R.I.P.) én wat is dit verslavend 🫣

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Vanaf morgen start een nieuwe reeks van 4 🤩

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Wow, that's amazing! Can't wait to read it!

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Despite my thesis being quite controversial, I got surprisingly positive reviews. #Reviewer1 called it "an incredibly original and well-researched article" and even #Reviewer2 thought it "an important and timely paper that contributes greatly to our understanding of the ODP".

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

This knowledge was still present and making people uncomfortable about 30 years ago, but has largely been forgotten in the present celebratory rendition of UNHCR's history of its actions in Vietnam (see e.g. www.unhcr.org/spotlight/20...)

unhcr.org

The Colour of Flight | UNHCR Spotlight

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

(despite the fact that leaving any country, including your own is a basic human right)

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

... in order to be resettled, people had to 'queue' inside Vietnam and their exit needed to be prevented by the Vietnamese state. While over a million Vietnamese left the country under the flag of the program, many saw their chances to leave curtailed.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

The article deals with a largely forgotten issue about the Orderly Departure Programme for Refugees from Vietnam (ODP): the reduction of freedom of movement for people wanting to leave Vietnam. The premisse of the ODP was quite simple...

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

I just wrote a little 🧵 on my article in the issue: bsky.app/profile/sara...

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Full reference: Cosemans, Sara, and Trinh Van Vinh. ‘Refugee Status as Taboo: How Humanitarian Intervention Impeded Refugee Recognition in Vietnam before the Orderly Departure Program (1979)’. Interventions - Journal of Postcolonial Studies 0, no. 0 (2025): 1–22. doi.org/10.1080/1369....

doi.org

Refugee status as taboo: how humanitarian intervention impeded refugee recognition in Vietnam before the Orderly Departure Program (1979)

The management of the Vietnamese refugee crisis, when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) resettled approximately three million refugees between 1975 and 1997, remains a corne...

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

I also thank two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments that made the article stronger!

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

This is a vastly understudied angle of UNHCR's involvement in Vietnam. I am so grateful to #ISRF Flexible Grants for Small Groups for allowing me to develop this idea, alongside a wonderful team of scholars consisting of Volker Prott, Martin Ottovay Jorgensen, Barbara Warnock and Yarong Chen.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

UNHCR choose to recognise people fleeing Vietnam on a case-by-case basis, creating a gigantic backlog that had detrimental effects on refugees, particularly those in camps in the area.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

So, UNHCR was reluctant, after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, not to recognize all people leaving as refugees. Doing so would mean that UNHCR would brand Vietnam as a persecutor of its own citizens (persecution and lack of protection by your own state is a prerequisite for refugee status).

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

After the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, UNHCR reached out the the Vietnamese communist regime(s - 2 at that time) and built important relationships that did not only matter to Vietnam, but also to UNHCR's reputation in the so-called Third World, where they sought more influence.

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

It was an honour to be part of the (writer's) team on this introduction and to contribute an article on UNHCR interventions in Vietnam

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Sara Cosemans @saracoos.bsky.social · 02/02/2024

Amai, hier ook. En we zitten er helaas nog middenin, in al die stresskes over 'de curve' 🙈

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