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  • Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance, and Transpacific Redress by Elizabeth W. Son
  • Jennifer S. Oh (bio)
Elizabeth W. Son, Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance, and Transpacific Redress (University of Michigan Press, 2018), ISBN 978–0–472–03710–0, 267 pages.

The Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II, also known as the “comfort women,” is a key example of gender-based war crime that has not been properly addressed in both national and international arenas. In her book Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance, and Transpacific Redress, Elizabeth Son provides a rich documentation of how survivors of the Japanese military sexual slavery and their supporters have attempted to redress the “comfort women” history through various forms of performances. One of the central themes of Son’s book is the role of performance in enacting “restitution for grievously unspeakable violence outside state parameters” and the “relationship between art and activism.”1 Son views these performances as “redressive acts,” which she defines as “embodied practices that involve multiple audiences in actively reengaging with traumatic pasts to work toward social, political, cultural, and epistemological change.”2

The book covers four different forms of “redressive acts”: the weekly Wednesday Demonstrations held across from the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea; the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery held in Tokyo from 8 to 12 December 2000; theatrical works on the Japanese military sexual slavery; and lastly memorial building projects in South Korea and the United States. Each chapter covers one of the redressive acts and raises distinct questions on the relationship between performances and justice for violence committed against women.

Chapter One explores the transformative role of performances by tracing the effects of the Wednesday Demonstrations on survivors of the Japanese wartime sexual slavery and the Korean society. Specifically the chapter asks, “What happens when survivors and thousands of their supporters repeatedly gather to perform demands of redress”? The Wednesday Demonstrations began in 1992 as a weekly rally demanding justice for the atrocities committed against women by the Japanese military. The [End Page 233] Wednesday Demonstrations have played a pivotal role in educating the public on the history of comfort women, generating domestic and international support for the cause of seeking justice for Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, and changing the perception and relationship of survivors with one another and with the society. These effects “go deeper than formal diplomatic forms of redress.”3

Chapter Two studies the relationship between performance and law, pointing to the limitations of the existing legal framework in bringing justice to survivors of the Japanese military sexual slavery. The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery served as a symbolic public legal event to adjudicate the issue of war crimes committed against women by the Japanese military, something that national and international judicial systems had failed to do. One key question of the chapter is “How was the Women’s Tribunal both a rehearsal for a future legal performance that will probably never happen and a public enactment of justice?”4 The Women’s Tribunal offered a supportive platform for survivors to offer their testimonies, strengthened transnational network among survivors and supporters, and generated global publicity and awareness of the issue. While the Women’s Tribunal lacked legal authority, the process through which it reached a guilty verdict “reaffirmed the value of redressive measures outside state parameters.”5

In Chapters Three and Four, the memory of survivors and activists emerge as a prominent theme, raising questions on the relationship among performance, memory, and redress. Chapter Three offers a lengthy description of four theatrical works that performed in different countries: Comfort Women (2004), Nabi (2005–2009), The Trojan Women: An Asian History (2007), and Bongseonhwa (2013, 2014). These works address memories of the comfort women within a fictional setting, and at times have brought about harsh criticisms from survivors who question the accuracy of the performance content. Chapter Four illustrates how the building of memorials such as the bronze girl in Seoul (South Korea) and Palisades Park (New Jersey, United States) evoke a sense of attachment among the public to the survivors and their...

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