“A most welcome contribution to a steadily developing area of research. Written with great clarity and precision, Voices That Matter will be an instant addition to reading lists on gender in the Middle East, ethnography, sociolinguistics, and ethnomusicology.”

Christine Robins, University of Exeter

“Voices That Matter offers an invaluable contribution to anthropological scholarship on voice and to conversations in related fields of music, media, and sound studies. It is also powerfully written, and its arguments take shape in carefully composed and evocative ethnographic writing. This truly is accomplished and compelling work.”

Daniel Fisher, University of California, Berkeley

"Voices That Matter is a book that will find resonance with multiple audiences. Drawing on diverse fields such as music theory, gender and postcolonial studies, discourse analysis, and the anthropology of affect, the book joins a larger body of recent work in charting out an alternative path for Kurdish studies away from its historical focus on the politics of nationalism toward a more varied set of thematic and theoretical concerns...  readers of all disciplinary backgrounds will be impressed by the book's eloquent prose, its rich ethnographic analysis, and by its empathetic engagement with its interlocutors and the political and ethical questions raised by their desire for voice."

Patrick C. Lewis | Linguistic Anthropology

"The book is a rich, minutely detailed, and assiduously researched anthropological treatment of Dengbêj women singers and the musical technicalities of its form, but it is also much more than that."

Francis O'Connor | Journal of Middle East Women's Studies

"In her wonderfully written and theoretically rich book, Voices That Matter, Marlene Schäfers disrupts the a priori valence often given to voice...Voices That Matter thus performs two levels of impressive work. On the one hand, it detangles liberal equations of voice, representation, and agency. On the other, it provides an important critique of Turkish feminism, bringing about the limits of taking voice as a political metaphor which veils the racialized politics that curtailed representation in the first place."

International Journal of Middle East Studies

"This book underscores Marlene Schäfers’ considerable skill and technique as an anthropologist but also attests to her dedication as a citizen to consolidating, reinforcing, and enriching the intellectual toolkit and interdisciplinary stature of Kurdish studies. My hope and expectation is that it will be widely read by Kurdish studies scholars, ethnomusicologists, folklorists, and anthropologists alike."

Kurdish Studies Journal

"Voices That Matter is an assiduously crafted exploration of the complexities and potentials inherent in 'the voice' through the lens of the experiences and challenges of Kurdish women dengbêjs in the precarious sociopolitical, cultural, and economic landscape of Turkey."

Women's Studies Quarterly