Received Sylff fellowship in 2022
Academic supervisor: Emmanuelle Saada
Current affiliation: Columbia University, History Department, PhD Candidate
Marie Robin is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University who researches the wars of French decolonization. Her dissertation investigates the gendered, political, racial, and military aspects surrounding the French military’s management and administration of soldiers’ sexuality during the First Vietnam War (1946-54) and the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). Centering its analysis on the state-sanctioned ubiquitous transcolonial system of French military prostitution, known as the Bordels Militaires de Campagne (Mobile Field Brothels), the dissertation illuminates the intricate dynamics between unregulated and regulated forms of sexual violence amidst the political and social power struggles of decolonization, highlighting the pivotal role of sexual violence within wartime rhetoric and anti-colonial nationalist discourse. Marie Robin received her M.A in history from Durham University (2018).
Academic Achievements, Social Engagement Initiatives:
Her chapter “‘A Constant Influx of Men, Day and Night’: Sex Trafficking and French Military Prostitution during the First Vietnam War (1946-54)” is forthcoming in Histories of Sex Work Around the World (London: Routledge, 2024)
