Ethnography and Researcher Positionality

Reflections on Feminist Fieldwork in Hip Hop Scenes in Sweden and Finland

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5429/2079.387(2025)v15i1.9en

Keywords:

ethnography, feminism, gender, hip hop, intersectionality, race

Abstract

In our article, we reflect on our respective ethnographic projects in Sweden and Finland among feminist women, girls, and non-binary people who are hip hop practitioners and/or artists. We focus on the intersectional analysis of our situatedness as white women scholars, reflecting on how our various identities, backgrounds, and lived experiences, such as being a DJ or “hip hop head,” affected our work in these specific contexts and hence also our knowledge production. In addition to feminist ethnography and critical race and whiteness studies as theoretical-methodological points of departure, we follow hip hop feminist principles outlined by Black women scholars such Gwendolyn D. Pough (2007: vii) as we “complicate understandings of hip-hop as a male space by including and identifying the women [...] involved with the culture,” and connect “personal narratives with theoretical underpinnings and critique.”

Author Biographies

Inka Rantakallio, University of Helsinki

Inka Rantakallio (PhD) works as a university researcher in Musicology at the University of Helsinki. She has an interdisciplinary background in Study of Religions, Intercultural Communications, and Musicology. In her research and teaching, she focuses on hip hop, popular music, gender, race, worldviews, and ideologies. In addition to her article publications, she has co-edited three books, including the Finnish hip hop feminist anthology in 2021 featuring more than 20 hip hop practitioners, journalists, and music industry professionals. She is also known for her contributions as a DJ, music journalist, editor, and public speaker.

Andrea Dankić, Umeå University

Andrea Dankić (PhD) is a University Lecturer in Ethnology at Umeå University, Sweden. Dankić’s research interests include musical practice, creative processes, knowledge production and power structures, mainly focusing on hip-hop. She is a member of International Association of the Study of Popular Music-Norden and was a member of the IASPM Executive Committee 2019-2023. She is also the Swedish representative in the European Hip Hop Studies Network.

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Published

22-05-2025

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Articles – Open Section