A01=Katharine E. McGregor
activism
Author_Katharine E. McGregor
Category=JBFK2
Category=JBFW
Category=JPVH
Category=NHF
Category=NHWR7
comfort women
Dutch East Indies
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
human rights activism
Indonesia
Japanese occupation
Pacific Theater
sexual violence
Suharto
World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9780299344245
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 20 May 2025
- Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The system of prostitution imposed and enforced by the Japanese military during its wartime occupation of several countries in East and Southeast Asia is today well-known and uniformly condemned. For decades, transnational activist movements have sought to recognize and redress survivors of this World War II–era system, euphemistically known as “comfort women,” with major movements in South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and elsewhere. However, Indonesian survivors, and even the system’s history in Indonesia to begin with, have largely been sidelined, even within the country itself. Katharine E. McGregor untangles the history of the system during the war and unpacks the context surrounding the slow and faltering efforts to address it. With careful attention to the historical, social, and political conditions surrounding sexual violence in Indonesia, supported by exhaustive research and archival diligence, she uncovers a crucial piece of Indonesian history and the ongoing efforts to bring it to the public eye. Critically, she establishes that the transnational part of activism surrounding victims of the system is both necessary and fraught, a complexity of geopolitics and international relationships on one hand and a question of personal networks, linguistic differences, and cultural challenges on the other.
Katharine E. McGregor is a professor of Southeast Asian history in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is co-editor, most recently, of Gender, Violence and Power in Indonesia: Across Time and Space.
