Soundscapes of the Nation: Silenced Others and Animal Languagesin Haw and Oko

Abstract

Kemal Varol’s 2014 novel Haw is an account of the multiple facets of the war between the Turkish army, Kurdish guerrilla and other underground organizations during the 1990s in eastern Turkey, recounted by a dog. İdris Baluken’s Oko (2019) is the story of its eponymous dog protagonist Oko’s journey as he finds himself involved in a group fighting to prevent another dog massacre from happening again. By looking at two contemporary novels that address the Kurdish issue in Turkey from the perspective of dogs, this paper aims to explore the implications of the biopolitical reach of the sovereign state and its impact on the definition of citizenship. Taking this shared symbol as a point of departure, this paper investigates nation-building processes in Turkey and how the definition of citizenship is contingent on the voices and languages that are silenced. What is the relation between language and belonging? To what language does one belong? What possibilities of resistance does the language of the non-human animal contain in its encounter with the violence of the sovereign power?