Citation

Varga A. Stud. Ethn. Nation. 2009; 9(2): 287-303.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1754-9469.2009.01054.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines how the nationalist discourse crystallising around the 'comfort women' issue (women abducted to function as sexual slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Pacific War) in South Korea has eventually rendered individual victims' needs and preferences irrelevant to a larger narrative of an unforgivable offence to national sovereignty. The narrative, constructed socially with the active participation of the Korean government(s), has also linked together past grievances felt towards both Japan and the USA (their people as well as their governments) 2013 albeit the latter appears only covertly, and on a more symbolic level its presence is indicative of the general public mood. What have been lost in the discourse are the very victims of military sexual slavery, whose fate and wellbeing has no longer been the subject of any social interest.