What does it mean to have a voice? And how does a voice need to sound like if it is going to matter? In this episode, Marlene Schäfers (Utrecht University) discusses her research with Kurdish women singers and poets to explore what makes the voice an object of desire and appeal in the contemporary world, particularly for historically marginalized subjects. Field recordings of Kurdish classical and recent repertoires reveal how contemporary politics of voice shape what voices mean, how they sound, and how they impact listeners.  
 
Marlene Schäfers is Assistant Professor in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University, Netherlands. She obtained her PhD at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her first monograph, Voices that Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey was published with the University of Chicago Press in 2022. You can find more information, including additional field recordings on her website: www.marleneschafers.com  
 
Acknowledgements: My thanks are due to the Kurdish women who so generously shared their time with me and let me record their voices. The recordings featured in this podcast were made in Wan, Turkey, in 2011-12.

Episode 27. Kurdish Women and Desires for Voice by Marlene Schäfers

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

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Episode 37: Origin Studies Part 3, by Adam Hinden. With Mike Degani, Timothy Cooper, and Marilyn Strathern

Anthropologists often work with communities far away from where they live and study. How do we come to commit ourselves to years of engagement in a specific field site? Inspired by a gap in anthropological education surrounding the selection of field-sites, this three-part podcast explores how some anthropologists developed their interest in specific settings and topics, and how these inclinations are shaped by various external factors into life-long research interests and specializations. Each episode contains the "origin stories" of three anthropologists at the University of Cambridge, and shows how anthropological knowledge often hinges on indirect, serendipitous experiences. 

Episode 3 features Mike Degani, Timothy Cooper, and Marilyn Strathern

Adam Hinden is an Irish-American researcher and musician currently based in London. His work, both for his anthropology MPhil at the University of Cambridge and in his current research with ACLED, surrounds activism and allyship among indigenous groups in Taiwan.

Episode 37: Origin Studies Part 3 with Mike Degani, Timothy Cooper, and Marilyn Strathern

Episode 36: Origin Studies Part 2, by Adam Hinden. With Andrew Sanchez, Elizabeth Turk, and Caroline Humphrey

Anthropologists often work with communities far away from where they live and study. How do we come to commit ourselves to years of engagement in a specific field site? Inspired by a gap in anthropological education surrounding the selection of field-sites, this three-part podcast explores how some anthropologists developed their interest in specific settings and topics, and how these inclinations are shaped by various external factors into life-long research interests and specializations. Each episode contains the "origin stories" of three anthropologists at the University of Cambridge, and shows how anthropological knowledge often hinges on indirect, serendipitous experiences. 

Episode 2 features Andrew Sanchez, Elizabeth Turk, and Caroline Humphrey

Adam Hinden is an Irish-American researcher and musician currently based in London. His work, both for his anthropology MPhil at the University of Cambridge and in his current research with ACLED, surrounds activism and allyship among indigenous groups in Taiwan.

Episode 36: Origin Studies Part 2 with Andrew Sanchez, Elizabeth Turk, and Caroline Humphrey

Episode 35: Origin Studies Part 1, by Adam Hinden. With Sian Lazar, Thomas White, and Iza Kavedžija

Anthropologists often work with communities far away from where they live and study. How do we come to commit ourselves to years of engagement in a specific field site? Inspired by a gap in anthropological education surrounding the selection of field-sites, this three-part podcast explores how some anthropologists developed their interest in specific settings and topics, and how these inclinations are shaped by various external factors into life-long research interests and specializations. Each episode contains the "origin stories" of three anthropologists at the University of Cambridge, and shows how anthropological knowledge often hinges on indirect, serendipitous experiences. 

Episode 1 features Sian Lazar, Thomas White, and Iza Kavedžija

Adam Hinden is an Irish-American researcher and musician currently based in London. His work, both for his anthropology MPhil at the University of Cambridge and in his current research with ACLED, surrounds activism and allyship among indigenous groups in Taiwan.

Episode 35: Origin Studies Part 1, by Adam Hinden. With Sian Lazar, Thomas White, and Iza Kavedžija

Who is responsible for making a work of art? In each episode of this collaborative podcast series, one anthropologist, specialising in a particular cultural context, has a conversation with an artist of their choosing, exploring issues of authorship and responsibility in art. Ranging across geographical locations and creative practices, discussions address and unpack the conceptualisation of the artistic person, authorship as centred upon an individual or bounded group, and the development of responsibility for artworks during and after their making. Each episode brings a fresh perspective on where ideas come from, what agency an artist feels in the creation of their work, and how, and in which contexts, ownership and responsibility for the artwork are claimed. Ultimately, as a collection, the series encourages listeners to think about ‘the artist’ and ‘the artwork’ as dynamic processes in a relationship of authoring.

Episode 8 features Rabab Chamseddine with Rebecca Appleton

Rabab Chamseddine (b.1997, Abidjan, Ivory Coast) is a Lebanese (spoken word) poet and film-maker based in Tyre and Beirut, Lebanon. She is currently completing her master’s in Literature at the American University of Beirut. Her poetry unfolds as an exploration of the bilateral theme of love and loss, and the poetics of meaning-making that emerge between them, in that very space of mourning, in Beirut. Chamseddine began her spoken word poetry journey in 2017 by partaking in poetry nights hosted in the hubs and communal cafes of Beirut, to later become the winner of Beirut Poetry Slam 2018. Her work will be appearing in an anthology entitled We Call to the Eye and the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Descent (Persea Books), edited by Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck, as of spring 2023.  
Find her on Instagram @ rababchamseddine 

Rebecca Appleton is a postgraduate researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is currently undertaking PhD research about the politics of contemporary women’s poetry in Beirut, Lebanon. The project researches the emerging and evolving performance and politics of women’s poetry in Beirut, focussing on poetry’s capacity to generate alternative spaces for personal, social, political, and gendered expression as the city negotiates crises. 

Artery is a podcast organised by Iza Kavedžija (University of Cambridge) and Robert Simpkins (SOAS, London) and supported by the AHRC.
Music: Footsteps, by Robert Simpkins.

Episode 34. Artery Episode 8: Rabab Chamseddine with Rebecca Appleton

Who is responsible for making a work of art? In each episode of this collaborative podcast series, one anthropologist, specialising in a particular cultural context, has a conversation with an artist of their choosing, exploring issues of authorship and responsibility in art. Ranging across geographical locations and creative practices, discussions address and unpack the conceptualisation of the artistic person, authorship as centred upon an individual or bounded group, and the development of responsibility for artworks during and after their making. Each episode brings a fresh perspective on where ideas come from, what agency an artist feels in the creation of their work, and how, and in which contexts, ownership and responsibility for the artwork are claimed. Ultimately, as a collection, the series encourages listeners to think about ‘the artist’ and ‘the artwork’ as dynamic processes in a relationship of authoring.

Episode 7 features Emiko Agatsuma with Iza Kavedžija

Emiko Agatsuma is a dancer and a choreographer specializing in Butoh, a  dance genre that emerged in Japan in the1960s as a reaction to Western modern dance. Having graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1999, she joined the largest Butoh Company - Dairakudakan founded by Akaji Maro. She had performed in every Dairakudakan production until 2019. She now heads the AGAXART production company for Butoh dancers and artists in Japan. Emiko is a recipient of the prestigious Best Young Artist 2015 Award by the Japan Dance Critics Association and she represented Japan in 2020 at the 39th annual Battery Dance Festival in New York City, USA.
https://agaxart.wixsite.com/agart/home
@emiko.agatsuma
  
Iza Kavedžija is an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. She is specialising in Japan, with primary research interests in art and creativity, the life course and aging, and health and wellbeing. She is currently leading an AHRC-funded project entitled ‘The Work of Art in Contemporary Japan: Inner and outer worlds of creativity’. 
https://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-iza-kavedzija

Translation and narration by Kaori Yoshikawa. 

Artery is a podcast organised by Iza Kavedžija (University of Cambridge) and Robert Simpkins (SOAS, London) and supported by the AHRC.
Music: Footsteps, by Robert Simpkins.

Episode 27. Kurdish Women and Desires for Voice by Marlene Schäfers

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