Title: Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey
Author: Marlene Schäfers
Publisher: University of Chicago
Release date: 2023

The introduction establishes the voice as an object of anthropological inquiry, showing how the seemingly universal idea that voices indicate the agency, autonomy, and empowerment of those who pronounce them is in fact specific to modern understandings of self and politics. It outlines how after decades during which Kurdish voices in Turkey were violently denied and repressed, a recent turn to pluralist politics has granted these voices new public audibility. Drawing on scholarship of music, sound, and media, the introduction argues that such audibility is not just a question of (un)successful political representation. Rather, it shapes vocal form—that is, how voices sound—which in turn fosters new understandings of self and community. The introduction thus lays the theoretical groundwork for approaching voice as more than just an index of freedom and empowerment, indicating the complex and contradictory effects public audibility engenders. In addition to outlining the conceptual framework of the book, the introduction also details its methodology and fieldwork context, and provides an overview over the ensuing chapters.[1]