Comfort Women in Human Rights Discourse: Fetishized Testimonies, Small Museums, and the Politics of Thin Description

Joo, Hee-Jung Serenity

doi:10.1080/10714413.2015.1028836

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…What the exhibit overlooks is the way nationalist sanctioned assumptions about race, class, and gender (Taber, 2019) led to the creation of the VAD position. The portrayal of the VADS in the CCGW's exhibit exemplifies Joo's (2015) sense that war museums tend to present women's histories through "thin" descriptions that lack context, subtlety, and nuance. Though the history of the VAD is one imbued with complicated racial and class dynamics, the curation of the CCGW's exhibit sanitizes this history, presenting it as a kind of "lovely knowledge" by suggesting an underdeveloped association between the VADs and women's rights in general.…”

Section: Canadian War Museum: "Over the Top"mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Unlike other that of marginalized groups, women's roles in Canadian military history are frequently explored in military museums. In the physical space of military museums, however, these narratives are often limited by stereotypical depictions, "thin" descriptions (Joo, 2015) and are frequently overshadowed by the sublime presence of massive guns (Walby & Pauls, 2021). Inside military museums, women's narratives usually appear in supporting roles, offering a "different" (but by no means opposing) perspective, or functioning as a refuge for those who cannot handle too much blood and gore.…”

Section: Canadian War Museum: "Over the Top"mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Curatorial Omissions in Virtual War Museum Displays: Uncovering Racial and Gendered Tensions in Canadian WWI Exhibitions

Pauls¹,

Walby²

2021

Curator The Museum Journal

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This paper investigates how virtual exhibitions curated by the Canadian War Museum (CWM) and the Canadian Centre for the Great War (CCGW) communicate ideas about nationalism and multiculturalism in Canada. Drawing from critical literature on participatory museum spaces, multiculturalism, and hegemony, we examine how virtual war exhibitions, which attempt to create space for marginalized identities, may inadvertently reinforce hegemonic understandings of Canadian identity. Through our analysis of two case studies, we explore how digital curation, while offering visitors a sense of participation, may also sanitize resistant perspectives. This analysis allows us to examine present-day Canadian multiculturalism as it is communicated in digital museum curations, including its practice of including racialized others on a conditional basis, its weaponization of white feminist narratives, and its continued investments in the history of English and French Canada as universal. We thus examine the way Canadian nationalism re-makes itself, and how virtual curatorial techniques, which may seem more inclusive, can serve hegemonic ends. This study should be of interest to curators and designers working in digital contexts, as well as scholars studying multiculturalism as it is pictured in museums, media, and other cultural representations.

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Section: Canadian War Museum: "Over the Top"mentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Canadian War Museum: "Over the Top"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Curatorial Omissions in Virtual War Museum Displays: Uncovering Racial and Gendered Tensions in Canadian WWI Exhibitions

Pauls¹,

Walby²

2021

Curator The Museum Journal

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“…Young women and girls, mostly between the ages of 11 and 20, were abducted from their homes in countries under Imperial Japanese rule, mostly from Korea, and the rest from China, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Netherlands etc [ 2 ]. They were detained in comfort stations and were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers, being raped 10 to 50 times a day for years [ 3 ]. They also suffered immeasurable pain from sexually transmitted diseases, aggressive treatment of these disease, forced abortion and sterilization, starvation, physical abuse, torture, threats of death, and approximately 75 percent are estimated to have died during the ordeal [ 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The “comfort women” issue was tabooed in the post-war decades and hidden by most of the survivors. In 1991, a Korean former “comfort woman” broke the silence and came forward publicly for the first time, seeking a formal apology and reparation from the Japanese government [ 3 ]. Her action led hundreds of other women in Korea to come forward, and 239 women officially registered with the South Korean government as former “comfort women.” Testimonies of many survivors revealed vivid details of their unbelievably cruel experience and the atrocities committed by the Japanese military.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychiatric Sequelae of Former “Comfort Women,” Survivors of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during World War II

Lee

Kwak

Kim³

et al. 2018

Psychiatry Investig

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“Comfort women” refers to young women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese military during World War II. They were abducted from their homes in countries under Imperial Japanese rule, mostly from Korea, and the rest from China, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Netherlands, etc. “Comfort women” endured extreme trauma involving rape, sexual torture, physical abuse, starvation, threats of death, and witnessed many others being tortured and killed. This article reviews all the studies that have investigated the psychiatric or psychosocial sequelae of the survivors of the Japanese military sexual slavery. Most importantly, a recent study which conducted a psychiatric evaluation on the former “comfort women” currently alive in South Korea is introduced. The participants’ unmarried rate was relatively high and their total fertility rate was relatively low. Majority of the participants reported having no education and being the low economic status. They showed high current and lifetime prevalence of posttraumatic disorder, major depressive disorder, somatic symptom disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and alcohol use disorder. Participants showed high suicidality and majority of the participants still reported being ashamed of being former “comfort women” after all these years. This article high-lights the fact that the trauma has affected the mental health and social functioning of former “comfort women” throughout their lives, and even to the present day.

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Critical Theory and History Education

Segall

Trofanenko

Schmitt

2018

The Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning

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Comfort Women in Human Rights Discourse: Fetishized Testimonies, Small Museums, and the Politics of Thin Description

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

Curatorial Omissions in Virtual War Museum Displays: Uncovering Racial and Gendered Tensions in Canadian WWI Exhibitions

Curatorial Omissions in Virtual War Museum Displays: Uncovering Racial and Gendered Tensions in Canadian WWI Exhibitions

Psychiatric Sequelae of Former “Comfort Women,” Survivors of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during World War II

Critical Theory and History Education

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