Photo: Emma Suominen
Kim Ramstedt
I am a researcher and educator specialized in music, media and social justice. I have lectured and coordinated courses since 2007 at Åbo Akademi University, University of Turku, Helsinki University, Dalarna University College in Sweden and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where I worked as an assistant professor in musicology 2022-2024. I have also given talks, organized events and training in collaboration with various organizations across Europe.
Currently, I am studying race as a social category in the field of music in the Kone Foundation funded research project Music scholars in society: Advancing social justice through activist music research (University of Helsinki / Suoni 2020-2025). I am investigating how music scholarship and media in Europe is equipped to deal with the systematic and structural injustices of racism. I am also exploring ethical questions in autoethnographic research and the compatibility of research with anti-racist activism.
In addition to my research and educational work, I have organized concerts, created websites and graphic designs, produced music, and performed as a DJ at some of the biggest festivals in Finland and in several other countries. Between 2009 and 2019 I worked as a part-time radio host on the semi-national Basso radio station. I have been an active board member in several association and the chairperson for Research Association Suoni between 2022 and 2024.
Reflexivity and disclosure of positionality are essential both in my research and in my teaching. As a white non-disabled cis-male studying systems of oppression, I acknowledge that I have no experiential knowledge on the topic. Rather than analyzing and possibly contributing to the normalization of the damage and distress caused by structures that I benefit from, my work interrogates privilege and how it not only creates injustice, but often works to obstruct any efforts of dismantling it.
Links
List of publications and activities on the University of Helsinki database