Professor Tina K. Ramnarine

Tina K. Ramnarine is an anthropologist, musician and global cultural explorer. Her interdisciplinary research draws on social theory, performance and multi-sited ethnographic work in looking at music, globalization, identity politics and environment. She has carried out extensive research across the Nordic countries focusing on Finnish music (contemporary folk music, Sibelius) and Saami music (joik, symphonies, rap, rock and the multimedia artist Nils Aslak Valkeapää). She has also worked extensively on Caribbean popular genres (from chutney to steelbands) and more recently in India on film orchestras. She has published widely on music in northern European, Caribbean and Indian diasporic contexts. Book publications are 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). With interests in engaged scholarship, she has explored what music researchers can contribute to important global issues such as climate change and has particular interests in polar warming. She is an Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice within which she is  researching 'the orchestra in global perspective'. This research stems from experiences as an orchestral musician. It explores 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 of the School of Indian Film Music (Chennai). She serves on the Society for Ethnomusicology's Board of Directors (USA). She is a former Chair of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology (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 current doctoral research students are working on projects such as music and social activism in South Africa, transmission and policies in UK conservatoires, South African jazz musicians in exile, music and sentiment in Vietnam, and Western art music in India. Tina K. Ramnarine has been invited to share her research insights by giving talks, public lectures and keynote conference papers internationally, including across the Nordic countries, Germany, France, Switzerland, Australia, India, Canada and USA.