Estelle Amy de la Bretèque

I'm an anthropologist and a musician. I conducted field research in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia and Indonesia. I play (and occasionally teach) Eastern Mediterranean musics and Javanese gamelan.

In recent years I worked on the anthropology of the voice. I conducted research on melodized speech and narratives of sorrow among the Yezidis of Armenia (I wrote a book on that and several articles). Previously I conducted research on the Molokans of Transcaucasia, on mourning ceremonies in Baku (Azerbaijan) and on the laments of displaced Kurdish women in the suburbs of Istanbul and Diyarbakir (Turkey). I published various articles on these topics.

My current research deals with the recent and ongoing changes in Yezidi religious practices, especially among the diaspora in Eastern and Western Europe.