"Popular Music, Cultural Complexity and Nordic Extremism". Part of the Nordic Project "Popular music in the Nordic region - Music, Identity, and Social Change in the Early 21st Century"

This project funded by Nordisk Kulturråd brings together a number of international scholars on popular music. It is directed towards publishing a volume in the Routledge series World Popular Music. The project will examine the role of popular music in the Nordic countries in the context of contemporary social change. The focus of volume will be to situate popular music in both local and cross-national contexts of the region and to apply and develop new interdisciplinary research perspectives. The project involves no0t only music scholars but also scholars working on music within anthropology, cultural studies, history, sociology, and media studies. The volume is part of a larger pan-Nordic collaboration and forms the basis for the production of radio and television series as well as museum exhibitions.The following perspectives will be emphasized:POPULAR MUSIC IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF WELFARE SOCIETY IN NEOLIBERALISMPopular music has shaped conceptions of gender, ethnicity, and race in relation to ideologies of the welfare state. If we recognize popular music as an agent of both tradition and of social change, how is it shaping Nordic policies, subjectivities and ideas about cultural heritage in relation to recent neoliberal restructuring of the market-state relations?POPULAR MUSIC AND CHANGING MUSICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF MARGINS AND CENTERS IN THENORDIC REGIONPopular music has long been associated with urban centers and has thus created hierarchies between centers and peripheries. Is this changing with new technologies of distribution and ongoing urbanization? Moreover, are new geographies of the Nordic region emerging in contemporary popular music and how are they different from previous ones? Both border regions and indigenous peoples will be included in the analyses.POPULAR MUSIC IN EMOTIONAL CULTURE AND NARRATIVES OF NORDIC IDENTITY ANDDIFFERENCEPopular music is recognized for its role in public emotional culture, for example in relation to social hierarchies and ambient soundscapes associated with particular Nordic landscapes. In such cases, popular music affords a platform for emotional culture and diverse images of Nordic identity. Popular culture is also an arena for exoticization and stereotypes that have a bearing on social and societal power relations.PARTICIPANTS AND PROJECT TITLESKimberly Cannady: Popular Music in the Postcolonial North AtlanticMark Deeks: Viking Metal Nicola Dibben: Popular Music and Iceland's Environmental and Economic PolicyAlexandra D'Urso: Multiple National Identities in Subversive Nordic Hip HopPaal Fagerheim: Electronica, Rap and Reggae in Northern NorwayJosh Green: Faroese Musicians' International NetworksThomas Hilder: Sámi Popular Music and the Politics of IndigeneityFabian Holt: Scandinavian Music EventsHsin-Wen Hsu: Post-Institutionalisation of Finnish Pelimanni/Spelman Music Sverker Hyltén-Cavallius & Lars Kaijser: Transnational Travels of Swedish 70s Progressive MusicHenna Jousmäki: Translocal Christian MetalAlexis Kallio & Lauri Väkevä: Dichotomies of Exclusion in Nordic Popular Music EducationJan Sverre Knudsen: Popular Music, Cultural Complexity and Nordic Extremism Antti-Ville Kärjä: Metahistories of Nordic Popular MusicsAnja Mølle Lindelof: The Politics of 'Rhythm Music' in ScandinaviaHenrik Marstal: National Legitimacy in Post-Millennium Popular Musics in DenmarkTony Mitchell: A Psychogeography of Icelandic Music and the 'Nordic Tone' Pekka Suutari: Russian Karelian Music in the Nordic RegionBenjamin Teitelbaum: Rap, Reggae, and Transnational Ultranationalism in SwedenTony Whyton: Jazz Mythology, Social Change and the Nordic Tone