Papers by Benjamin R Teitelbaum
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 2023
It was a question-and-answer session following a colloquium presentation I gave to the Department... more It was a question-and-answer session following a colloquium presentation I gave to the Department of Anthropology at my home university in Colorado (United States). I had just delivered a paper that would later become an article (Teitelbaum 2019), describing my ethnographic research among organised white nationalists and radical nationalists. For nearly a decade, I had been observing, interviewing and even living with the people I studied, so I could learn about their agendas and expressive cultures. I had conducted research in Germany and Hungary, as well as Arizona and Virginia in the United States. However, Sweden was my primary fieldwork site, and, since 2010, I had been tracing the transition of the country's radical right from skinhead hooliganism to party politics and highbrow reactionary intellectualism. But my presentation in Colorado focused on methodology and ethics, reflecting on the ways in which I had gained and maintained access to insiders, and how my experiences had shaped my writing. Afterwards, an audience member pointed out the fact that I had not included a standard position statement in my talk. That is, I had not described my identity, how it related to those of the people I studied and, crucially, what opportunities and privileges it afforded. But the audience member was not merely asking for such a statement-they offered to help: I was a white man, and my discussion ought to have considered the ways in which my white masculinity shaped my access to and ability to study male-dominated organised racist groups. A fine point. Certainly my being a young, able-bodied man placed me closer to some of my informants' ideals, and with that surely came rapport. And yet there was a reason I had avoided the topic while speaking. For while I stood in front of that audience as unequivocally white, I was something else to the population I studied. My relatively dark phenotype and Ashkenazi-Jewish last name were hardly markers of socially significant racial otherness in Colorado, but they were in Sweden and in the context of organised white nationalism, at large. As I explained this, the atmosphere in the room felt tense. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I imagined sirens sounding in the minds of those listening: How predictable, a white man denying his privilege. Was I self-exoticising to escape a compromising affiliation and to claim that my research opportunities had derived from my own industry and genius?
The Routledge Companion to Ethics and Research in Ethnomusicology, 2022
Ethnography, as it has been theorized and valued throughout recent decades, relies on the formati... more Ethnography, as it has been theorized and valued throughout recent decades, relies on the formation of relationships between scholars and the people they study. Over time theorists have further argued that the methodology is more ethically executed and epistemologically productive as those relationships deepen, specifcally as they grow more collaborative, egalitarian, and dialogic. Embedded in that process is not just a loss of distance between researcher and the studied, but also a loss of control over the relationship, the research process, and the research product. Based on these premises, I published an article in Current Anthropology (Teitelbaum 2019) laying out what I saw as the trouble inherent in using ethnography to advance a moral or political agenda. I argued that it is unwise to think a scholar could unilaterally declare and maintain a political identity in their research while practicing ethnography. That is especially obvious for scholars like me whose interlocutors adopt political agendas boldly at variance with their own. I am a scholar of the radical right, and have for over a decade conducted face-to-face ethnographic research among individuals and groups identifying as National Socialists, white nationalists, or rightwing populists. I adopted what I consider standard ethnographic practice, striving to never conceal my identity or aims, to deepen relationships and exchange with informants, to involve their voices in the research process, and to write with the primary goal of exposing and interpreting their experience of the world. My approach provided rare insights, I believe, but also myriad moral conficts and scholarly products that could reasonably be accused of platforming dangerous ideas. My case may seem exceptional, yet likely all of us study people with whom we disagree in some way. Ethnographers following the so-called "moral turn" in anthropology have nonetheless insisted that our research have greater and greater moral clarity and consistency-that not just we as people, professionals, and pedagogues, but also we as scholars should be operating and producing knowledge in the service of social justice. While our ideal research methods portend less control of our scholarship, political ideals demand more. I argued that this confict between methodology and morality was more fundamental than exceptional: ethnography entails moral volatility. Moreover, such volatility will stress us only when it is of a certain kind, when research veers from our moral instincts. Maintaining ethnography's most powerful explanatory tools, even pursuing a call to direct ethical commitments to research participants, can as well advance agendas we consider immoral. We can call ourselves as "collaborators," yes, but we ought do so mindful of the term's positive and negative connotations. It was an argument I made with no reference to the fact that I am not just an ethnographer, but more specifcally an ethnomusicologist. And in this chapter, I consider the ways this moral/methodological impasse manifests in the ethnography of music. I ask in particular if ethnomusicologists
Music Research Annual , 2021
This article reviews the scholarly literature on music produced from the 1980s to the present by ... more This article reviews the scholarly literature on music produced from the 1980s to the present by Western far-right political actors. Research on this topic has been conducted primarily by sociologists and political scientists rather than musicologists, the article claims, and these scholars often focus on the political, economic, and social consequences of the music, rather than its sound or performance. The article argues that the terminology in this literature is inconsistent, with some scholars using the term "White power music" to refer specifically to a style that originated from the British skinhead scene of the 1980s and other scholars employing it to refer to far-right music in general. Despite many attempts to address the phenomenon of far-right music holistically, the literature has overemphasized skinhead music while largely ignoring other genres, including those of more recent and politically successful far-right movements. The article argues that developing more detailed, rather than generalized, analyses and giving more attention to music beyond skinhead genres would serve the needs of scholars and anti-far-right activists alike, providing the detailed accounting necessary to map, analyze, or counteract far-right politics.
Patterns of Prejudice
While commentators often describe transnational far-right populism as a unified movement, Teitelb... more While commentators often describe transnational far-right populism as a unified movement, Teitelbaum's article investigates incongruities among antiimmigrant, nationalist actors in two locations today. It focuses on the implications of Donald Trump's success for the Sweden Democrats, highlighting party leaders' inability to establish a coherent position on the US Republican. Their struggle derives from Trump's mismatch with the party's emerging reformist ideals. Accordingly, the public sphere analysed in this article provides insight, not only into the internal divisions and fraught history of the Sweden Democrats, but also into the dynamic nature of contemporary right-wing populist movements in the West.
Current Anthropology, 2019
Julius Evola in the White House
Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare
![Research paper thumbnail of Ignorerade band. Politik och ofullständiga ontologier i forskning om Sverigedemokraterna [Ignored Ties: Politics and Incomplete Ontologies in the Study of the Sweden Democrats].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/44876246/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Det vita fältet III. Samtida forskning om högerextremism specialnummer av Arkiv. Tidskrift för sa... more Det vita fältet III. Samtida forskning om högerextremism specialnummer av Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 5 (2016) Ignorerade band. Politik och ofullständiga ontologier i forskning om Sverigedemokraterna Benjamin R. Teitelbaum sammandrag: I sin artikel ifrågasätter Benjamin R. Teitelbaum det rådande paradig met inom forskningen om Sverigedemokraterna. Han hävdar att politiska agendor leder akademiska och journalistiska kommentatorer till att använda en begränsande definition av partiet i sina analyser. Medan Sverigedemokraterna utgör en komplex politisk, ideolo gisk, social och kulturell rörelse så behandlas partimedlemmarna ofta av forskare enbart som politiska och ideologiska aktörer. Teitelbaum förtydligar sin ståndpunkt genom att granska ett återkommande tema i forskningen om partiet, nämligen huruvida Sverige demokraterna kan kopplas till rasideologiska och högerextrema krafter i det svenska sam hället. Han visar att medan de ideologiska sambanden mellan partiet och andra radikala nationalistiska krafter är svaga, så är de sociokulturella sambanden starka. Teitelbaum hävdar slutligen att dessa kopplingar förbises på grund av att de är mindre relevanta för dem som vill utmana partiet politiskt. Artikeln uppmanar till ett paradigmskifte inom forskningen, där Sverigedemokraterna börjar studeras som det mångfacetterade fenomen partiet är. nyckelord: högerpopulism; extremism; etnografi; Sverigedemokraterna; forsknings etik; politisk kultur. publiceringshistorik: Originalpublicering. benjamin r. teitelbaum är lektor och prefekt i nordiska studier vid University of Colorado, Boulder. epostadress: [email protected] förslag på källangivelse: Teitelbaum, Benjamin R. (2016) "Ignorerade band. Politik och ofullständiga ontolo gier i forskning om Sverigedemokraterna", i Det vita fältet III. Samtida forskning om högerextremism, specialnummer av Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 5, s. 93-110. Artikeln distribueras enligt en upphovsrättslicens från Creative Commons: ErkännandeIckekommersiellIngaBearbetningar 3.0 Unported, som medger fri icke kommersiell användning och spridning i oförändrat skick så länge källan anges. Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys är en sakkunniggranskad vetenskaplig tidskrift för samhällsvetenskap och historia. Samtliga artiklar publiceras fritt tillgängliga på: www.tidskriftenarkiv.se (beständig länk, doi: http://dx.
is article examines the construction of gender roles in contemporary white nationalist music. Gro... more is article examines the construction of gender roles in contemporary white nationalist music. Grounded in extensive and ethnographic eldwork, the article traces the rise of leading Swedish singer Saga and argues that her music frames women as besieged embodiments of racial and national essence dependent on men for deliverance. e discussion of Saga's music draws from a review of recent social and ideological shi s in radical white nationalism, insider interviews, performance observations, and structural and textual analyses.
The Path of Dreams: Breivik, Music, and Neo-Nazism
Talks by Benjamin R Teitelbaum
’Neighbor, Take Me By the Hand’: Racial Me-too-ism and the Paradoxes of White Nationalist Music in Scandinavia
The Significance of Saga: Norwegian Terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, Music, and Ideological Affiliatio
’Music is Our Weapon, and Our White Skin is Our Uniform’: Changes in the Sound of Scandinavian Radical Nationalism
’Med hundra lejons mod’: Gendering Race in Nordic White Power Music
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Papers by Benjamin R Teitelbaum
Talks by Benjamin R Teitelbaum
The Nordic context stands out as peculiar in many ways. On the one hand, Nordic countries tend to imagine themselves outside the history of racism and colonialism, nurturing an idea of Nordic exceptionalism. On the other, racism and segregation is sharply defining Nordic societies. Thus, despite official ideals of colour-blindness, questions of race and whiteness saturate contemporary literature, media, and music, as well as social and political life both within the Nordic countries and in images of Norden abroad. This special issue will shed light on how these ideas continue to impact the notion of Nordic whiteness mediated through ethno-nationalist politics, media representations, national imaginaries, and embodied representations within and outside the Nordic context.
The special issue constitute a cross-national and cross-disciplinary set of authors seeking to provide new understandings of Nordic whiteness in the light of a history of paradoxes. The articles reflect the similarities and differences between the Nordic countries and combine social, political and cultural perspectives that reflects how ideas of whiteness are reproduced but also challenged in a number of ways. They also explore how Nordic white identities and representations intersect with gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationalism and class.