Andrew Hardy

Andrew Hardy is a historian of Vietnam, with research interests in migration and ethnic relations, and a geographical focus on the central region.

After his BA in history at the University of Cambridge (1987), his interest in the history of Vietnam led him to pursue his studies at the Université de Paris 7, where he wrote MA (1991) and DEA (1993) dissertations under the supervision of Daniel Hémery. His PhD on Vietnamese migration was supervised by David Marr at the Australian National University. His doctoral thesis (1999), published as Red Hills (2003), focused on the relationship between migrants and the State in Vietnamese lowland-upland migration. During his stay at the National University of Singapore, as post-doctoral fellow and assistant professor (1999-2002), he became interested in twentieth-century relations between Viet migrants from the plains and ethnic minorities in the highlands. 

Since joining the EFEO in 2002, his research has focused on the Vietnamese southward expansion, the Vietnam-Champa relationship, and issues of migration and ethnic relations in the history of central Vietnam. In 2005, this interest led him to study the Long Wall of Quang Ngai, a monument measuring 127 km (designated Vietnamese national heritage in 2011). Built in 1819, the wall allows multi-disciplinary research on relations between the Viet and the Hrê ethnic minority during the eighteenth to twentieth centuries and Vietnam-Champa relations during the preceding centuries. The project is a cooperation between the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences) with the participation of a team of European and Vietnamese researchers and students.

Andrew Hardy’s interest in the study of Southeast Asia motivated his participation in several projects involving consortiums of European and Southeast Asian institutions funded by the European Commission and led by the EFEO: he was scientific coordinator of the FP7 project SEATIDE (Integration in Southeast Asia, Trajectories of Inclusion, Dynamics of Exclusion, www.seatide.eu, 2012-2016), and coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project CRISEA (Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia, www.crisea.eu, 2017-2021).

Andrew Hardy’s research also focuses on Vietnamese migration in international context, which he studies as part of the ANR-funded project “Cooliebrokers” (2021-2024) on migrant labour in the Asia Pacific. Led by the University of Paris (Diderot), the consortium is studying migration brokerage within the imperial framework established under French rule and the post-colonial legacies of this migration in Vietnam and New Caledonia. 

Andrew Hardy is a member of the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE/UMR 8170).