Author: Jaeyeon Lee, International Studies Program, Hollins University - Academia.edu, Google Scholar, ORCID, ReasearchGate

Abstract: »This article explores the digital hauntology of Japanese military ‘comfort women’ (JM‘CW’) testimonies by analyzing the Heeum Museum’s 2021 VR exhibition, Time, Place, and Testimony of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery Survivors. ‘Comfort women’ refer to the 80,000 to 200,000 women forced into providing sexual and psychological services to the Japanese imperial army during WWII. Drawing on in-depth interviews with museum activists and autoethnographic reflections, I examine how VR technologies spatialize the ghostly testimonies of deceased JM‘CW’ and activate participant memory work grounded in Yecheon and Daegu, South Korea. Specifically, this article examines how the museum’s activists presented the VR exhibition as an act of digital memory activism, responding to the ghostly appeals of the JM‘CW’. It then analyzes how the exhibition unpacks the spectrality of Kim Oak-sun’s testimonieshow her ghostly presence lingers as an unhealed wound in the minds of the locals in Yecheon. Extending this analysis, I then examine how Moon Oak-ju’s testimonies haunt the city of Daegu and how Heeum Museum’s digital hauntology extends beyond virtual space into affective, transpersonal memory work. By doing so, this article shows how JM‘CW’ continue to speak even after death and how virtual reality (VR) serves as a haunto-epistemic space wherein these women’s voices return to unsettle the present.« (Source: Social & Cultural Geography)

Contents:

	Introduction
	The Heeum Museum Exhibition: Curatorial Structure, VR, and Digital Preservation
	Towards a Digital Hauntology of Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’: Trauma, Testimony, and VR Geography
	The Spectral Appeal of Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ and Heeum Museum’s Digital Memory Activism
	When the Ghostly Testimonies of Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ Return in VR
		The Spectrality of Kim Oak-sun's Testimonies and the Belatedness of Trauma
		Haunting the City through Moon Oak-ju’s Testimonies
			Mapping the Impossibilities of Moon Oak-ju’s Lives
			Rephotography, the City’s Testimony, and Participatory Memory Work
	Conclusion
	References

Lecture: Lee, Jaeyeon. »Digital Hauntology: The Heeum Museum’s VR Exhibition of Comfort Women’s Ghostly Testimonies.« Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies. Columbus 2025. - Bibliographic Entry: Info

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | History of Asia: History of Korea / Korea under Japanese rule, History of South Korea | Museum: Museums in South Korea | Prostitution: Forced prostitution / Comfort women | Sex and the law: Wartime sexual violence / Wartime sexual violence in World War II | War: Pacific War / Japanese war crimes