Tina K. Ramnarine is an anthropologist, musician and Professor of Music at Royal Holloway. Her interdisciplinary research draws on social theory, performance and multi-sited ethnographic work in exploring issues around music, globalization, identity politics, cultural diplomacy and environment. She has carried out extensive research on Finnish music (especially contemporary folk music and art music from Sibelius to Rautavaara), on Saami music across the Nordic region (symphonies, joik, rap, Skolt rock and especially the famous multimedia artist Nils Aslak Valkeapää), and on Caribbean popular genres (from chutney to steelbands). She has published widely on music in Finno-Ugric, Nordic, Caribbean and Indian diasporic contexts, including the books Creating Their Own Space: The Development of an Indian-Caribbean Musical Tradition (University of West Indies Press, 2001), Ilmatar's Inspirations: Nationalism, Globalization, and the Changing Soundscapes of Finnish Folk Music (Chicago University Press, 2003), Beautiful Cosmos: Performance and Belonging in the Caribbean Diaspora (Pluto Press, 2007), and an edited volume Musical Performance in the Diaspora (Routledge, 2007). A current research project is 'the orchestra in global perspective' (within the AHRC Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice). This project stems from experiences as an orchestral musician and it is based on participatory research models and thinking about orchestral contributions to civil society, sustainability issues, new virtual technologies and anthropological approaches to ritual performances.

She co-convenes the Royal Holloway Postcolonial Research Group. Currently, she is the UK representative on the International Council for Traditional Music (UNESCO NGO), an Associate Fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, an advisory panel member of African Musicology Online and an international advisory council member for the School of Indian Film Music (based in Chennai, India). She is a former Chair of the British Forum for Ethnomusicolgy (2005-08) and co-editor of Ethnomusicology Forum.

Her teaching is diverse and multidisciplinary. Recently she has taught courses on Sibelius, Finno-Ugric and Nordic Music, Orchestras, Music and Politics in the Caribbean and its Diaspora (Topics in World Music), Techniques in Ethnomusicology (history and methods), and various performance options. Her recent and current doctoral research students are working on music and politics in the Arctic, music and social activism in South Africa, transmission and policies in UK conservatoires, and South African jazz musicians in exile. She is interested in supervising PhD projects exploring the creative, social and political dimensions of music.