Contextualising 'Comfort Women': A Critical Analysis of Knowledge Production and Transfer Across Disciplines

This thesis examines the transfer of knowledge between disciplines, specifically in ‘comfort women’ studies. ‘Comfort women’ refers to girls and women who were recruited by the Imperial Japanese Army to work in military brothels during the Pacific War. Their history remains contentious, requiring nuance and care when providing historical context in studies outside of historical research. Using this sensitive case study related to wartime gendered violence, this study investigates how historical context is translated into other disciplinary endeavours, with a focus on critical historiography and history-writing. By combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, this study evaluates whether historical representations of ‘comfort women’ retains its complexity. The dataset consists of academic publications from different disciplines from the past three decades, divided into categories based on their historical representation of ‘comfort women’. Results show that almost half of...Show moreThis thesis examines the transfer of knowledge between disciplines, specifically in ‘comfort women’ studies. ‘Comfort women’ refers to girls and women who were recruited by the Imperial Japanese Army to work in military brothels during the Pacific War. Their history remains contentious, requiring nuance and care when providing historical context in studies outside of historical research. Using this sensitive case study related to wartime gendered violence, this study investigates how historical context is translated into other disciplinary endeavours, with a focus on critical historiography and history-writing. By combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, this study evaluates whether historical representations of ‘comfort women’ retains its complexity. The dataset consists of academic publications from different disciplines from the past three decades, divided into categories based on their historical representation of ‘comfort women’. Results show that almost half of publications, mostly from non-historical disciplines, inadequately represents the complexities of ‘comfort women’s’ history. Another quarter does retain some nuance, while the remainder is a combination of authoritative works and publications showing a deep understanding, contributing to the ongoing academic debate on ‘comfort women’, primarily from history-related disciplines. These findings point towards a substantial failure to retain the complexity of a sensitive and nuanced topic when translated across different disciplines. This thesis therefore argues that, to prevent potential ‘abuse’ of history due to misinformation, scholars should remain vigilant when crossing disciplinary boundaries and the academic community’s attitude towards knowledge production and circulation should remain critical and introspective.Show less

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Contextualising 'Comfort Women' A Critical Analysis of Knowledge Production and Transfer Across Disciplines