The Korean Comfort Women Movement And The Formation Of A Public Sphere In East Asia

Abstract

The 'comfort women' movement has established a transnational advocacy network and, by doing so, contributed considerably to the formation of a regional public sphere in East Asia. Focusing on the Korean case, this chapter gives an overview of this process, which can be understood in terms of three main stages. In the first stage, activists mobilised supporters in many countries by adopting the universal framework of the women's rights movement. In the second stage, the transnational advocacy network was subject to fragmentation as a result of the activities of the Asian Women's Fund, which had been introduced by the Japanese government to compensate the victims of sexual slavery in World War II. In the third stage, activists revived their transnational collaboration network by connecting the comfort women issue to experiences of war and violence all across East Asia. Keywords: East Asia; Korean comfort women movement; regional public sphere; transnational advocacy network