Author: Academia.edu

Abstract: »Using the Liji Alley Museum as a vantage point, this article examines the politics of remembering "comfort women" in contemporary China. I situate the museum within threecontexts: Chinese museums on Japanese aggression, the global initiative to create women’smuseums, and the trans-Asian movement to found museums dealing exclusively with the"comfort women" issue. On the one hand, I discuss how the Liji Alley Museum has madeimportant interventions by foregrounding the relevance of gender to discussions of civilianwartime experience and by normalizing critical discussion of violence against women. Byexamining the museum’s physical layout, narrative frameworks, and display techniques, I revealits use of a combination of survivors’ testimonies and affective devices to engage visitors. On theother hand, I analyze its limitations vis-à-vis present-day China’s gender politics. The museum’sreliance on government funding and its incorporation into the state-sponsored system of patrioticeducation have constricted its potential to offer a more complex critique of the multi-layeredcauses behind "comfort women" victims’ suffering, and to connect the "comfort women" issuewith contemporary discussions of gender-based violence« (Source: The Journal of Asian Studies)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of China / History of the People's Republic of China / History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | 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