Often labeled neo-Nazis or right-wing extremists, radical nationalists in the Nordic countries have always relied on music to voice their opposition to immigration and multiculturalism. These actors shook political establishments throughout Sweden, Denmark, and Norway during the 1980s and 1990s by rallying around white power music and skinhead subculture. But though nationalists once embraced a reputation for crude chauvinism, they are now seeking to reinvent themselves as upstanding and righteous, and they are using music to do it.Lions of the Northexplores this transformation of anti-immigrant activism in the Nordic countries as it manifests in thought and sound. Offering a rare ethnographic glimpse into controversial and secretive political movements, it investigates changes in the music nationalists make and patronize, reading their puzzling embrace of lite pop, folk music, even rap and reggae as attempts to escape stereotypes and craft a new image for themselves.Lions of the Northnot only exposes the dynamic relationship between music and politics, but also the ways radical nationalism is adapting to succeed in some of the most liberal societies in the world.
Acknowledgements Prologue Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Vi ?r ocks? ett folk! : A New Nationalism Rises Chapter 3: White Pride/Black Music: Nordic Nationalist Rap and Reggae Chapter 4: Inherent Nordicness, Inherent Goodness: Renewing Nationalist Folk Music Chapter 5: Lament for a People: Women Singers and New Nationalist Victimhood Chapter 6: New Nationalism and the Decline of Music Epilogue Bibliography Index
Teitelbaum is an ethnomusicologist who has adopted a refreshingly non-adversarial, multi-year, 'collaborative' ethnographic approach to interacting with and gathering information on his subjects. In a field in which far too many researchers violate normal scholarly standards by embracing a highly partisan and indeed overtly hostl³»