근대 일본의 ‘카라유키상’ : 그 실태와 이동 네트워크를 중심으로

Abstract

It is a common knowledge that from the beginning of Meiji to Showa period a number of Japanese women went over to overseas and were involved in prostitution industries. It is said that more than 20,000 of these women so-called 'Karayuki-san' spread from East Asia to Southeast Asia, America and Africa continents in the early 1910s. Among these regions, Singapore had the largest demand for ‘Karayuki-san’ in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, it acted as a hub to send 'Karayuki-san' out to various places in Southeast Asia, Australia and even to Africa.

What made this phenomenon possible was the power which pushes 'Karayuki-san' out from Japan, the power which pulls them toward the place where ‘Karayuki-san’ were in demand, and the network which gathers, distributes, and moves them. There are a number of studies on ‘Karayuki-san’, but they tend to place ‘Karayuki-san’ in the place of departure or arrival and analysis the push and pull factors. However, it seems to be difficult to place 'Karayuki-san' inside the border of Japan or a place where they resided. Some of 'Karayuki-san' left their hometown and settled down abroad for several years and then came back, but some of them remigrated to a different place where had demand for these Japanese women. Thus, it can be said that 'Karayuki-san' were cross-borderal.

Based on the above point of view, this thesis examines the actual condition of 'Karayuki-san' from a social historical perspective focused on the network which enabled 'Karayuki-san' to migrate. This is to that shedding light on the process of their migration while sublating to place them inside a certain region. This is also expected to help to understand that 'Karayuki-san' emerged and migrated from multiple relations, and to avoid to understand them as a product of a single nation.