580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Key research themes
1. How do metal music communities form translocal networks and sustain identity through collective musicking practices?
This theme examines the social structures and networked interactions that underpin metal music communities globally, focusing especially on underground scenes. Research investigates how collective action, shared values, and situational practices like events and musicking enable scene and community formation across local and translocal spaces. This is vital for understanding metal not merely as a musical genre but as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon where identity, belonging, and agency are negotiated and performed through social networks and embodied interactions.
Key finding: Using social network analysis combined with ethnographic and survey data from 474 participants, this study uncovers the UK's underground metal music world as a translocal network where collective action, resource... Read more
Key finding: This paper proposes a practical, cross-cultural theory of local metal scene formation based on ethnographic studies in Indonesia and the USA, emphasizing how scenes develop through generational succession, relations with... Read more
Key finding: This work foregrounds the paradoxical coexistence of community and individuality within metal music culture. It argues that metal communities are continuously negotiated, embodying shared values, emotional connectedness, and... Read more
Key finding: Through ethnographic fieldwork in Guadalajara, Mexico, this paper reveals that musicking and embodied performance practices (e.g., mosh pits) function as core mechanisms for bonding in the metal community, yielding new... Read more
2. How do linguistic choices and metalinguistic awareness within metal subcultures influence perceptions of identity, authenticity, and community belonging?
This research theme focuses on the intersection of language use, metalinguistic consciousness, and cultural identity within metal subcultures. Investigations explore how language selection in metal music (e.g., English vs vernacular languages) interacts with nationalist, gendered, and authenticity discourses, shaping both self-expression and audience reception. Also included are studies of communities formed around endangered language revival or symbolic language practices, revealing the role of language ideology in constructing metalinguistic communities within or adjacent to metal culture.
Key finding: This socio-anthropological study analyzes why French metal bands predominantly sing in English, linking language choice to authenticity, gender performativity, and nationalism within the global metal scene. It finds that... Read more
Key finding: Building on prior research on language in French metal, this study further elucidates how metal musicians negotiate the tensions between singing in English (global metal lingua franca) and French (vernacular), exposing... Read more
Key finding: This work investigates the formation of a trifurcated metalinguistic community tied to the Cornish (Kernewek) language revitalization. It demonstrates how ethnolinguistic infusion—incorporation of language ideology and... Read more
Key finding: Through ethnographic fieldwork on the semi-speaker of the near-extinct Chaná language, this paper traces the social construction of 'last speaker' status and ensuing community formation. It highlights how metalinguistic... Read more
3. What roles do ideology, discourse, and political narratives play in shaping extreme metal subcultures and their representation?
This theme addresses the ideological dimensions and discursive constructions within extreme metal subgenres, focusing on how political narratives—such as self-conscious elitism, racism, paganism, and anti-mainstream stances—contribute to community identity, transgression, and controversy. It analyzes the ways extreme metal negotiates societal reactions, moral panics, and internal tensions over inclusion, providing a nuanced understanding of how politics and ideology are performed, contested, and managed within metal studies.
Key finding: This paper identifies explicit and implicit ideological motifs in extreme metal subgenres, detailing how narratives around pagan mythology, racism, Nazism, and elitism function within black metal and related scenes. It... Read more
Key finding: Through a critical historiography of metal scholarship, the paper challenges prior subcultural dismissals of metal politics and advocates for recognizing metal's multifaceted political expressions, especially within extreme... Read more
Key finding: This editorial frames metal studies’ engagement with politics by expanding the political beyond state arenas to encompass power relations at individual and communal levels. It situates metal as a site where structural... Read more
Key finding: Focusing on Jewish metal as a case study, this chapter interrogates the tensions between ethnic/national diversity and aesthetic-political authenticity in metal. It argues that overt expressions of Jewish identity in metal... Read more
Key finding: This conference paper challenges prevailing assumptions of metal’s racial homogeneity by highlighting the global racial and ethnic diversity of metal fans and musicians, especially in non-Western contexts. It problematizes... Read more