Diệu Ly Hoàng
DPhil Student - Trinity College
Research Topic: Shattered Legacies. Colonial Vietnam and the Making of Fragmented Heritage: The Champa Case (c. 1898–1956)
Supervisor: Alastair Wright
Over the past decade, provenance research in colonial contexts and debates on restitution have moved to the center of art-historical discourse. While African and West Asian case studies have largely dominated these discussions, Southeast Asian contexts, particularly those of former French Indochina, have remained comparatively underrepresented. This project investigates how Cham material heritage became fragmented through successive regimes of dispossession in colonial Vietnam between c. 1898 and 1956. It argues that the extraction and dispersal of Cham objects cannot be understood through French colonial archaeology alone but must be situated at the intersection of French colonial heritage governance and Vietnamese regimes of territorialisation that reshaped Cham sites, material culture, and histories.
Centering the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) as a key institution of colonial archaeology in former Indochina while reading its archives alongside Vietnamese records and historiographies, the project reconstructs a history of “double dispossession” in which Cham material culture was displaced through both colonial extraction and national frameworks of heritage-making. Methodologically, the study adopts a “reversed history of collecting” that centres on excavation sites, archival absences, and material loss, treating these not as gaps to be filled but as historically produced effects of colonial power. I aim to shift the focus from arrival narratives in European museums to the conditions of departure and displacement as well as their consequences for Cham communities.
By bridging institutional history, object-based analysis, and site-oriented research, the project contributes to critical debates in provenance studies, colonial history, and museum studies. Beyond the Champa case, it develops transferable methodological approaches for analysing fragmented heritage, archival silences, and institutional opacity in colonial and postcolonial contexts.
Publications
- “Le musée Khai-Dinh à Huế. Classifications muséales et hiérarchies patrimoniales en contexte colonial”, Histoire de l'Art, no. 97, 2026.
- Mikaél Assilkinga et al., Atlas der Abwesenheit. Kameruns Kulturerbe in Deutschland, Heidelberg 2023.
Conference Papers, Lectures & Other Speaking Engagements
- “Collecting Huế: The Musée Khai-Dinh and the Making of Vietnamese Heritage”, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, 18–21 March 2027, Boston, USA. (forthcoming)
- “Collecting the Nation under Colonial Rule: The Musée Khai-Dinh in Vietnam”, Conference Collecting to Shape and Reflect the Nation, Victoria & Albert Museum South Kensington, London, UK, 22–23 October 2026. (forthcoming)
- “Displaying Japan in Wartime Vietnam: Transimperial Encounters at the Musée Khai-Dinh, 1942”, Conference The Making of Japanese Art History in the 20th Century, Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg, Germany, 3–4 September 2026.
- “Crisis and Cultural Governance: Vietnamese Integration into the Musée Khai-Dinh's Board in 1934”, Conference Après la tempête: Afterlives of Colonial Crisis and Conflict, French Colonial Historical Society, Maynooth University, Ireland, 25–27 June 2026.
- “Musée Khai-Dinh - Approaching Colonial Museum Histories”, Symposium Forum for East Asian Art History, Universität Zürich, 5–6 June 2026.
- “Musée Khai-Dinh - Museum Creation as Civilising Mission?”, Conference Creating the Museum: Exploring the Museum Impulse in Local, Regional and National Contexts, Museums and Galleries History Group, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, The National Gallery London, UK, 26–27 September 2025.
- “Musée Khai-Dinh - Koloniale Provenienzen”, Lunch Time Talk with Christine Howald and Anna-Jo Weier, Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V., Study Group France, 4 September 2025.
- “Whose Representation? - Musée Khai-Dinh between Colonial and National Identity”, Conference Representations of Empire: Art, Museums, International Expos, French Colonial Historical Society, Buffalo State University, NY, USA, 29–31 May 2025.
- “Kunst - Raub - Kolonial. Kulturgutverlagerungen in Zeiten des Kolonialismus”, AStA Universität Trier, 28 November 2024.
Interviews & Media
- Eva Murašov for Der Tagesspiegel, “Von der Jugend in Nauen zum Stipendium in Oxford”, 31 May 2026.
- Gouri Sharma for Al Jazeera, ‘We are all Vietnamese and came to Germany to build a better life’, 7th July 2025.
Prizes and Funding
- Clarendon Fund Scholarship (2026-2029)
- European Scatcherd Scholarship (2026-2029)
- Trinity College Graduate Scholarship in the Humanities (2026-2029)
Franco-German Prize for Master's Theses, German Historical Institute in Paris (2026) - Tagesspiegel's 100 most important figures of Berlin's scientific community (2026)
- William Shorrock Travel Award, French Colonial Historical Society (2025)
German Academic Scholarship Foundation (2018–2024)
Instagram @_lylyhoang
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/diệu-ly-hoàng-000211237
