A Post-structuralist Approach To Deconstructing Women Dengbej Performers And Their Narratives


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Çakmak S.

3rd International Symposium on Interdisciplinary and Progressive Arts & Education (ISIPAE) Proceedings Book , Antalya, Turkey, 26 - 27 August 2023, pp.345-420

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • City: Antalya
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.345-420
  • Van Yüzüncü Yıl University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Dengbeji is a form of musical transmission that is unique to Kurdish culture and has its own way of singing. The male-female transmitter is called dengbej, and the narrated transference is called dengbeji. The main thing in dengbej is not singing in Kurdish. In this transmission, which has a special expression technique and way of saying, recitative discourse is generally important. This music, which has different transmission practices for men and women, shows that women have important roles due to its success in transmission. The struggle and struggle of female Dengbej/stranbej to gain acceptance in patriarchal societies with the male language has continued for many years. The transformation of these lyrical melodic transmissions coming from within as a woman into a social value by the male dengbej requires deconstruction to be read in this language.

Women have been marginalized at every stage of the existing social structure since their existence and have become the "other" of gender discrimination. To what extent does a woman make herself accepted in this system and how can she reveal her existence through her narratives? Based on the hypothesis, female musical transmissions were examined. These transfers; epic, story, lament, lullaby, event, etc. The transfers in this genre were examined in terms of discourse/psychological analysis and the deconstructed aspects were tried to be determined. In the study, the types of female transference were discussed with their most dominant characteristics, the thematic features of the words that added gender to the narrative were examined, and the words that were deconstructed were interpreted. For this purpose, the connection between the Dengbej/stranbej women who were interviewed orally and their narratives was tried to be determined through the questions asked and as a result of observation, and the narratives were recorded as videos for analysis. The recordings were analyzed from body movements to the meanings of discourse and movement, and interpreted in the light of ethnological context and discourse analysis. The lyrics of the interpreted musical transmissions were determined by considering their deconstruction on the basis of gender, and the themes in which they were expressed were determined by the discourse/psychological analysis method. As a result, it can be said that the thematic structure of women's narratives and their arguments glorifying the male gender make the narrative a male creation, and as a result of deconstructive analysis, it is seen that the feminine qualities of women in men's shirts can be revealed with this method.