The counter-boomerang effect of transnational revisionist activism on the memory of ‘comfort women’

Abstract

This article focuses on the mechanism of the global memory politics revolving around the issue of ‘comfort women’, who were sexually exploited and abused by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War (1931–1945). Informed by the ‘boomerang effect’ of transnational advocacy networks, this article analyses how the counter-boomerang effect of transnational denialist networks, both from above and below, has challenged the concerted efforts of moral memory activists in solidarity to disseminate the issue of ‘comfort women’ as one of universal human rights. It concludes that the revisionist network has adopted four tactics similar to those exercised by transnational advocacy networks – ‘information politics’ ‘symbolic politics’, ‘leverage politics’ and ‘accountability politics’ – however, their manoeuvres are totally different from those in the original boomerang effect.