Researchers studying international organizations have access to growing and varied archives due to digitization efforts. While developments in computational methods confer efficiency gains for examining these materials at scale, they raise concerns about their validity when applied to interpretive tasks in historical settings. In response, we present a general and flexible workflow that uses simple computational techniques from linguistics to enhance archival researchers’ interpretive skills and sensitivity to historical contexts. These techniques also identify patterns that can serve as evidence of causal mechanisms when embedded within strong research designs and theoretical expectations. Then, we demonstrate our mixed-method approach by applying it to a dataset of International Labour Organization’s (ILO) annual reports spanning ninety-three years. Examining the ILO's engagement with refugees as described in these documents, we identify key moments during which refugees have been particularly salient for this organization, and the emergence of new issues on its high-level policy agenda.

中文翻译：

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结合计算和档案方法研究国际组织：难民和国际劳工组织，1919-2015

由于数字化的努力，研究国际组织的研究人员可以访问不断增长的各种档案。虽然计算方法的发展为大规模检查这些材料带来了效率提升，但它们在应用于历史环境中的解释任务时引发了对其有效性的担忧。作为回应，我们提出了一个通用且灵活的工作流程，该工作流程使用语言学中的简单计算技术来提高档案研究人员的解释技能和对历史背景的敏感性。当嵌入强有力的研究设计和理论预期时，这些技术还可以识别出可以作为因果机制证据的模式。然后，我们通过将其应用于国际劳工组织 (ILO) 跨越 93 年的年度报告数据集来展示我们的混合方法方法。通过检查这些文件中描述的国际劳工组织与难民的接触，我们确定了难民对该组织特别重要的关键时刻，以及在其高级别政策议程上出现的新问题。