Contact Details

• Home Institution email: ben.raffield@arkeologi.uu.se 
• Durham email: TBC
• Durham Tel: TBC

Ben Raffield is an Associate Professor in Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He holds BA and MPhil degrees in Archaeology and Archaeological Practice from the University of Birmingham, and he received his PhD in Archaeology from the University of Aberdeen. Prior to arriving in Uppsala, he worked for three years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Evolutionary Studies Program (Department of Archaeology) at Simon Fraser University, Canada. In addition, he has held visiting fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh, Dartmouth College, and the University of Iceland.

Dr Raffield’s primary regional and chronological expertise lies in the study of Late Iron Age/Viking Age Scandinavia and early medieval Europe. Currently, his work focuses on the themes of 1) violence, martial culture, and their impacts on social and political organisation, 2) captivity, slavery, and social inequality, and 3) migration, conflict, and coalescence in cross-cultural and transnational settings. These are explored and articulated primarily through discussions of Late Iron Age society, but with substantial reference to broader, global archaeologies of migration, slavery, conflict, and state formation across and outside of the broader cultural sphere of the so-called ‘Viking diaspora.’ His interest in conflict extends across multiple periods, and includes the study of the archaeology and cultural legacies of the 1941-45 Pacific War.

Dr Raffield is currently engaged in several research projects. He is PI on the Swedish Research Council-funded project Social Inequality, Structural Violence, and Marginalisation in Viking-Age Scandinavia (2022-25), and Co-I on the NordForsk-funded project Making a Warrior: The Social Implications of Viking Age Martial Ideologies (2023-26). In addition, he is a participant in two research initiatives at Uppsala University – the Viking Phenomenon project, and the Uppsala Research Center for the World in the Viking Age, both of which focus on the global archaeologies of the Viking Age.

To date, Dr Raffield has produced several dozen research articles and books. These include a co-authored introductory text to the archaeology and history of the Viking Age (Price & Raffield, 2023. The Vikings), and an edited volume focusing on the archaeology of the Pacific War (Raffield, Hirasawa, and Price, eds., 2023. Multivocal Archaeologies of the Pacific War, 1941–45: Collaboration, Reconciliation, and Renewal). Key research articles have focused on topics ranging from the psychology of inter-group violence, to the links between hegemonic masculinity and martial cultures, the archaeology of slave-trading and human trafficking, and social inequality and structural violence, among others. Dr Raffield is a passionate advocate for public outreach and dissemination, and he regularly contributes to public lecture programmes and podcast series. He also works as a consultant for television and film projects.

While in Durham Dr Raffield will collaborate with colleagues from Archaeology, English Studies and Modern Languages and Cultures to consider the cultural and social impact of former eras in the 21st century, and how this interacts with academic discourses that study those periods. 

Events

TBC