Abstract
This chapter theo-ethically contemplates the soldiering of girls in colonial Korea by examining Japan’s mobilization of girls during its Asia Pacific War (1931–1945). More specifically, soldiering girls in Korea is argued as the manifestation of the idea of sovereignty’s right to kill (e.g., necropolitics). Through the lens of “necropolitical labor,” which means that the extraction of labor from those who are condemned to death happens for the fostering of lives of others (i.e., state), the soldiering of girls in the late colonial Korean context reveals the militarized incorporation of girls into the body of the nation. The chapter will further generate a Christian feminist ethic of peace that is strong enough to stop the nation-state from exercising its right to kill the vulnerable for the fostering of the lives of others.
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Notes
- 1.
“A Letter from an Elderly Survivor of Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps,” Hangyeore News Paper 4/7/2017, http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/area/789752.html.
- 2.
BBC News, 11/29/2018, Mitsubishi Heavy Ordered Forced S. Korean War Workers https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46381207.
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Pae, KJ.C. (2019). Factory Girls and ‘Comfort’ Girls: A Feminist Theo-Ethical Reflection on Korean Girl Soldiers in Japanese Empire. In: Willhauck, S. (eds) Female Child Soldiering, Gender Violence, and Feminist Theologies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21982-6_8
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