뉴스레터

A Study on the 'Comfort Women' in Anglosphere

In early 2021, Ramseyer's paper caused controversy. Contributions and papers pointing to the flaws in his thesis were published continuously, which appeared as an international academic solidarity. In the process, I realized that the Korean (history) academic community was indifferent to research in English. Of course, it can not be denied that Korean and Japanese scholars have led the study of the 'comfort women'. Of course, it is undeniable that Korean and Japanese scholars have led the study on 'comfort women' for the Japanese imperial army. But now, the comfort women are being discussed globally. Therefore, we must hurry to draw the topographic map of the transnational knowledge field surrounding it. Securing a transnational view is because it can break down the hierarchy of 'global-local' and overcome the reality that is limited to the agenda based on nationalism in Korea and Japan.

In Anglosphere, articles informing the issue of 'comfort women' have appeared in various journals since 1992. And international attention grew after the United Nations Commission on Human Rights published a report in the mid to late 1990s. More than 450 studies on ‘comfort women’, published in English from the 1990s to 2020, include academic papers, dissertations, and books. In particular, the number of research cases has surged to 170 in the last five years. This coincides with the establishment of the statue of the ‘comfort women’ and the intensifying diplomatic dispute between Korea and Japan. These issues were recognized as regional security issues in Northeast Asia and as issues of the country where the statue was established. So it seems to have attracted the attention of the world media and scholars.

What's going on in the global memory space?

Carol Gluck said “The comfort women had become universalized as what one scholar terms ‘global victims’ whose ‘symbolic power’ was by then out of Japanese or even Asian hands.” Margaret D. Stetz predicted that the day was not long before the US university conducted a study on ‘comfort women’. Their argument shows that the history of the comfort women has been incorporated into the international community's recognition system and moved to a global memory place. Kang Hyun-yi pointed out in the position of Asian-Americans that the ‘Asianization’ of oppression or damage to women is being formulated and circulated through academia, transnational organizations and NGOs. When the damage of 'comfort women' converges to the global level, which is the universal world, it makes people worry about the locality that is erased and the otherize that is reproduced.

Another problem that arises when the issue of ‘comfort women’ moves to global space is the competitive attitude of East Asian countries to victimize ‘comfort women’. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus criticized in the preface of a special issue related to the 'comfort women'. 『The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus』 criticized in the preface to a special issue published in relation to the ‘comfort women’: “The East Asian ‘competitive victimhood’ to associate the Holocaust with the narrative of the people is a pathological sign.” This is not because the damage of the ‘comfort women’ does not meet the Holocaust standards. This is because the history of 'comfort women' is simplified and it is possible to be commercialized as dark tourism in such competition.

Transnational knowledge fields and global memory spaces do not privilege certain countries or groups. This means that the history of 'comfort women' is not fixed, but is being reborn in combination with the gender, race, and class of the world. The history of 'comfort women', which is remade with several memories, meets with local history in various places and moves to a new level in connection with future memories. This process of mutual communication creates multi-directional memories and promotes the decentralization of memories. And this throws a lot of challenges to Korean academia.

Features of Research in Anglosphere and Future Tasks

The important issues to consider in future studies are as follows. First, among the researchers on 'comfort women' in Anglosphere, the proportion of those who majored in East Asian studies and Japanese studies is high. So, except for Korean people, it is rare to refer to Korean data and research results. The fact that knowledge of Korea and East Asia is introduced to Anglosphere via Japan, and the reality that it is produced again through quotations causes imbalance of structure of knowledge production. In particular, it is a big problem that criticism of the colonial character of the 'comfort women' system is accepted as a Korean characteristic. But you shouldn't understand this as nationalist, Struggle for Hegemony. We must seek solutions through solidarity with postcolonial issues around the world.

Second, except for publications published by a few Revisionist Historians, it is difficult to find the composition of 'forced vs. voluntary' and 'sexual slave vs. prostitute' in the discussion about the nature of the 'comfort women' system. In the transnational knowledge field, advocates of ‘sexual slavery’ is close to agreed knowledge. However, the fact that there are many studies that do not see forced labor or forced prostitution as opposite to sexual slavery suggests a lot. We need to build on the concept of violence against women, and we need to overcome the narrow understanding of the damage of comfort women.

Third, many studies have pointed out the patriarchy of Korea as the reason for silence of women after the war. Some described it as a cultural difference. In Korea, it provides an opportunity to reflect on it. However, in Anglosphere, it is understood as an Asian characteristic that has not been ‘modernized’ or a Confucian tradition of Korea. This essentialist approach reproduces Orientalism and racism. The silence of women is a result of a combination of the Cold War system, US military base villages, militaryization, patriarchal sex culture and sexual exploitation.

Fourth, Anglosphere considers the history of the Japanese military 'comfort women' as violence against women and sexual violence during war. The sexual assault of the Allies during World War II, and the sexual exploitation of US troops stationed in postwar East Asia, are reviewed in the same context. This is a work that asks a wide and fundamental question about what is violence against women and what subjugates and enslaves women. However, there is a movement to question the paradigm in the meantime and rediscuss it. Because it takes discussion to see the experience of 'comfort women' with the ideal lens of 'women's rights' in the ranks of transnational history.

It is most worrisome to remove locality and marginalize minorities while emphasizing transnational ideals. The Western-centered human rights paradigm has contributed to making the history of 'comfort women' a universal memory. But we have to look at the reality of otherizing 'Asia' and 'Women' calmly. The critical overcoming of human rights discourses formed based on Western universality, heterosexual normal norms, and national state should be a task of transnational knowledge field.