Voices that Matter
Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey
“Raise your voice!” and “Speak up!” are familiar refrains that assume, all too easily, that gaining voice will lead to empowerment, healing, and inclusion for marginalized subjects. The world over, countless feminist, development, and human rights activists are deeply invested in measures that seek to give voice to the ostensibly silenced so as to ensure their participation and agency, while liberal democracies encourage their citizens to voice their sentiments and opinions as an integral mechanism of political decision-making.
My book, Voices that Matter published in 2022 with the University of Chicago Press, examines the consequences of contemporary politics that incite marginalized subjects to voice in the name of empowerment, emancipation, and representation. Based on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Turkey with Kurdish female singers, poets, and women’s activists, it argues that “raising one’s voice” in the contemporary world is not always or necessarily empowering but constitutes an endeavor full of risk, dilemma, and contradiction. What is more, an equation of voice with agency and empowerment fails to adequately capture the effects of such incitement. By narrowly focusing on whether the marginalized have already acquired voice or are still being silenced, it loses sight of how contemporary politics of voice foster new understandings of self and community and engender novel arenas of struggle and contestation.
To bring these effects into view, Voices that Matter attends to the voice as form, shifting attention away from what voices say to how they do so. I trace how oral genres have been changing in a context where Kurdish voices have gained increasing moral and political value as metaphors of empowerment, representation, and resistance. Focusing on the transformations in how Kurdish women relate to and employ their voices, I illustrate that “gaining voice” is no straightforward path to liberation, especially when one’s voice can be selectively appropriated to further empty displays of pluralist representation.
Hozan Feraşîn
Kilam about the death of Hozan Feraşîn, a young Kurdish political activist, narrating the search for and discovery of his body. Performed by Dengbêj Asya (pseudonym).
Field recording. 1 June 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Filîtê Quto
Kilam about a tribal battle of the early twentieth century, in which the mother Şemê laments the death of her son Filît. Performed by Dengbêj Şakiro.
Lament for husband and son
Kilam by Altûn, a Yezidi widow from Armenia, lamenting the death of her son and husband. An audio recording of the kilam can be found on the website of Amy de la Bretèque. Go to “Document 52.”
Xalît Begê Cibrî
Kilam about Xalît Begê Cibrî, leader of the Sunni Cibran tribe. As leader of the second Hamidiye regiment he was involved in fighting against Armenians during World War I. In the 1920s he became member of the Kurdish nationalist Azadî organisation and was hanged by the Turkish regime in 1925.
Xalê Cemîl
Kilam in which a young woman expresses her sorrow at being married to a much older man.
Suffering in marriage
Kilam performed by Dengbêj Fadime (pseudonym) about her suffering during marriage. Field recording. 10 January 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Hêdî Bajo
Kilam about an early twentieth-century massacre of Yezidis. Performed by Elyas Nedîr.
Radio Yerevan
Recordings of Radio Yerevan’s Kurdish department have been made accessible by the German Kurdish Cultural Institute (Deutsch-Kurdisches Kulturinstitut) as a YouTube playlist containing 914 songs.
Ey Felekê
Kilam about the loss of a family member to political violence. Performed by Dengbêj Gazîn.
Field recording. 1 April 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Emînê Ehmed
Kilam in which Perîxan laments the death of her son as a result of betrayal by his half-brother.
Performed by Dengbêj Salihê Qubînî.
A visit to Istanbul
Kilam by a mother about visiting her imprisoned daughter in Istanbul.
Field recording. 26 March 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Ez Gazîn Im
Performed by Dengbêj Gazîn. Field recording. 21 September 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Qedera Min Ev E
By Eyşe Şan.
Dewrane
Kilam about the 2011 Wan earthquakes. Performed by Dengbêj Gazîn.
Field recording. 11 September 2012. Wan, Turkey.
Helebçe
Song about the 1988 gift gas attack on Helebçe (Halabja) in Iraqi Kurdistan.
By Şivan Perwer.
Xalê Cemîl
Kilam in which a young woman expresses her sorrow at being married to a much older man. Commercial recording. Performed by Dengbêj Gazîn.
From Van to Yerevan
An album of the Van-Yerevan exchange project between Kurdish and Armenian women singers,
organized by Anadolu Kültür, was published by Kalan Music, Istanbul.
All recordings from the album are available on YouTube.
Ninnim (Armenian) / Meyrokê (Kurdish)
Shared Kurdish-Armenian folk song.
Malan Bar Kir
Song about Armenians departing in the face of the impending genocide.
Malan Bar Kir
A fast-paced version by Nizamettîn Arîç.