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‘Korean Comfort Women’, Fluid Representation

  • Journal of Manchurian Studies
  • Abbr : 만주연구
  • 2018, (25), pp.173~207
  • DOI : 10.22888/mcsa..25.201806.173
  • Publisher : The Manchurian Studies Association
  • Research Area : Social Science > Area Studies > East Asia > China
  • Received : May 15, 2018
  • Accepted : June 15, 2018

LEE JIEUN 1

1서울과학기술대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how the texts representing ‘comfort women’ were produced, distributed and translated before official testimonies about Korean ‘comfort women’ appeared. Unlike the official denial, prior to the first testimony, many representations of ‘comfort women’ were produced. These representations were often distorted depending on the speakers’ location and intentions. The texts representing ‘comfort women’ prior to 1991 are important in that they clearly depict how ‘comfort women’ were perceived as individual subjects of speech, and accordingly, how they were distorted and refracted. In addition, by examining the aspects of representation, the power relations still operating can be understood. This study investigated the texts written by Im Jong-guk, who would write the existence of ‘comfort women’ in the memory of the nation under this critical mind. Im Jong-guk extracted and cited contents related to ‘comfort women’ from war recordings and reminiscences published in Japan to reveal the reality of Korean ‘comfort women.’ The texts on ‘comfort women’ were supplemented, oscillating between studies of Im Jong-guk and studies of Korean-Japanese Kim Il-myeon. The appearance of ‘comfort women’ discovered in the retrospect of Japanese soldiers became expressed as the ‘rage’ on the empire, going through ‘Kim Il-myeon-Im Jong-guk,’ men of the nation. However, there were no accounts from Japanese soldiers’ perspectives on the assumption of their being ‘comforters.’ ‘Im Jong-guk-Kim Il-myeon’ wrote representations of ‘comfort women’ while they assimilated within gendered positions as ‘the comforted.’ Furthermore, the memoirs of “comfort women’ were distorted by publishing companies, translators, and so on. However, without raising any questions, only the parts needed were taken and quoted. By looking at the distortion patterns, this research explores the representative meanings behind “comfort women” in Korea and Japan.

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