Listening to Survivors

Abstract

In the comfort women movement, testimony was employed as the most popular and the most effective strategy for getting public support. Scholars debated whether or not testimony could count as historical evidence and theorized the act of listening to survivors as a form of taking responsibility. As exemplified in the narratives of Yang Ching-ja and Nobukawa Mitsuko, activists took it as their responsibility to listen and respond to survivors sincerely. The act of listening brought about mutual transformation as it contributed to survivors’ recovery from injuries and to activists’ personal growth. Ishida Yoneko, a historian, narrates how she came to see testimonial narratives as historical evidence through her changing interpersonal relationships with Chinese survivors.