Relatos de hisaeng (sacrifício): o corpo como articulador afetivo e intergeracional da agência política das mulheres zainichi

Abstract

Zainichi refers to Koreans residing in Japan, a term used to describe those who migrated during the colonial period (1910–1945) and their descendants. Within this diaspora, young Korean women left their homeland and faced harsh living conditions shaped by colonialism, war, ethnic discrimination, and gender-based violence. Despite these overlapping structures of power, zainichi women found openings to act, collectively producing alternative forms of agency that ensured the material and subjective continuity of subsequent generations. This study aims to identify such forms of agency through a theoretical framework informed by scholars such as Judith Butler, Saba Mahmood, Mari Luz Esteban, Sara Ahmed, and Cecilia Macón, who foreground the role of the body and affects in everyday socio-political processes. The research engages with post-structuralist feminism, the sociology of affects, and feminist anthropology, proposing an approach that recognizes the complexity of lives situated at the margins of International Relations, in contrast to the binary, liberal, and Western assumptions that shape the field. The analysis is based on Jackie J. Kim-Wachutka’s ethnographic research, interpreted through Esteban’s methodology of bodily itineraries and affect theory. The central hypothesis is that the suffering and sacrifice of first-generation women resignified zainichi female subjectivity in affective and discursive ways, shaping subsequent generations collectively. This process articulated an intergenerational affective body capable of enacting different forms of agency, whether subversive or not, within national and transnational power structures. By highlighting forms of agency often overlooked by approaches centered on rationality and institutional action, this research contributes to expanding understandings of political participation and social transformation in contexts marked by gender inequality, migration, and violence. In doing so, it engages critically with contemporary agendas on gender equity and the recognition of marginalized experiences.