Haunting the Korean Diaspora traces the genealogy of the kijich'on (camptown) woman from the afflictions of war and her transformation from the disparaged yanggongju (Western princess/whore) to the assimilated American immigrant upon crossing the Pacific Ocean. The book is not an empirical analysis of military prostitution or the political economy of the camptown that produces the yanggongju. Fictional representations of the kijich'on woman abound, yet the book is not fiction. This is a unique kind of sociopolitical-cultural narrative, drawing on the empirical research of others, works of Korean and Asian American literature, the author's personal memories, and more.
Grace Cho, an anthropologist and performance artist, employs multiple methodologies, but she is particularly indebted to psychoanalytic theories as she explores trauma's tendency to “haunt” across families, generations, and national territories, including her own. She focuses on the Korean War's “psychic impact” on survivors and “the traumatic sensations carried by those...
