Stephen R. Millar

Source: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/stephen-r-millar/ Parent: https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/anthropology-sociology-ba/

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Stephen R. Millar

Lecturer, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics
Anthropology and Ethnomusicology
Emails.millar@qub.ac.uk

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

I welcome PhD applications in the areas of: \ - Music and Conflict \ - Music, Health, and Wellbeing\ - Popular Music and the Politics of Identity \ - Social Movements \ - Sport, Politics, and Popular Culture

2012Research output 2012: 2Research output 2013: 3Research output 2014: 2Research output 2015: 7Research output 2016: 4Research output 2017: 5Research output 2018: 2Research output 2019: 2Research output 2020: 6Research output 2021: 7Research output 2022: 2Research output 2023: 1Research output 2024: 2Research output 2025: 1Research output 2026: 12026

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research Focus

Stephen R. Millar is Lecturer in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology at Queen's University Belfast. His work focuses on music, power, and conflict, with an emphasis on Britain and Ireland. He is particularly interested in the social impact of music-making and his work uses music as a platform to examine some of the most pressing concerns of our times, including militant nationalism, social inclusion, and the legacy of colonialism.

Stephen is the author of Sounding Dissent: Rebel Songs, Resistance, and Irish Republicanism, and Performing Paramilitarism: Loyalist Songs, Conflict, and Culture War in Northern Ireland. He is co-founder of the Songs of the Northern Ireland (SoNIC) archive. Stephen is co-editor of two volumes of essays, Football and Popular Culture and Football, Politics, and Identity, and co-edited a special issue of Managing Sport and Leisure on Football and Politics guest editor in 2020. He is currently working on a new book project on police music ensembles in Northern Ireland.

Research Statement

Stephen has written on topics ranging from football chants and state censorship to the role of music in engaging hard-to-reach young people, and from music as (post)colonial struggle to community experiences of sectarianism. His work has been published in a broad range of academic journals, including the British Journal of Music Education, Ethnomusicology Forum, Health & Social Care in the Community, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Managing Sport and Leisure, Music & Politics, Popular Music, Popular Music and Society, Race & Class,andScottish Affairs.

Sounding Dissent: Rebel Songs, Resistance, and Irish Republicanism(University of Michigan Press, 2020) explores how Irish republicans have used rebel songs to resist against the hegemonic power of the British state. Drawing on three years of sustained fieldwork within the rebel music scene, the book challenges the parameters of the postcolonial and reconceptualises political resistance through sound, using rebel songs to understand the history of political violence in Ireland. Sounding Dissent has received excellent reviews across a range of journals including Ethnomusicology Forum, Irish Political Studies, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Oral History, and Popular Music. It was awarded a High Commendation in the British Association for Irish Studies Book Prize (2021).

Performing Paramilitarism: Loyalist Songs, Conflict, and Culture War in Northern Ireland(Oxford University Press, 2026) examines the interconnection between loyalist songs and political violence in Northern Ireland from the Troubles to the present. Performing Paramilitarism unravels the role songs play in inciting violence during war and legitimising structural violence during peace, examining their embeddedness in paramilitarism and inter-communal conflict. It explores why musicians and audiences continue to consume loyalist songs, and how, in the wake of Brexit, such songs form part of a cultural nostalgia for multiple and intersecting imagined pasts, which resonate with the rise of populism in other parts of the world. The book is the first of its kind and is supplemented by an online archive of political music-making. This demonstrates how political song of diverging persuasions commented on and connected with the social and political landscape in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and how political song continues to shape present-day issues and identities.

Drawing on original research in countries across four continents, Football and Popular Culture and Football, Politics, and Identity present diverse case studies ranging from sonic violence among Brazilian torcidas organizadas to fan-led commemoration of the Munich Air Disaster, which together help us to better understand the intersection of sport, society, and popular culture. The books explore some of the most important themes in the study of sport, including activism, migration, and national identity, and show how football continues to be tied to political events, symbols and movements. The books plot a new path in Football Studies, showing how the lives and bodies of clubs, players and fans around the world are enmeshed with politics.

Stephen is currently working on a new book project that focuses on police music making in Northern Ireland. Through archival research and interviews with police musicians, as well as attending concerts and performances, the project seeks to understand the various ways music has been instrumentalised by the police, from professional ensembles as soft power during the early years of the state to music's role in contemporary community relations.

Achievements

Stephen's research has been funded by the AHRC, ERC, IRC, Leverhulme Trust, and the Scottish Government. He has contributed to news broadcasts, discussion programmes, and documentary series appearing on various media platforms, including the BBC, BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Scotland, Radio Télévision Suisse, RTÉ One, RTÉ Radio 1, and VICE.

Before joining the faculty at Queen's, Stephen was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Ethnomusicology at Cardiff University. He was Lead Researcher on the EU-funded COOL Music project and a Researcher on the Community Experiences of Sectarianism project for the Scottish Government. He was was awarded his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Queen’s University Belfast, an M.Phil. in Music from the University of Cambridge, a B.Mus. from the University of Glasgow, and a B.A. in Politics from the University of Strathclyde.

Teaching

Autumn

ANT1001: Being Human: Culture and Society

ESA3013: Music, Power and Conflict

IRS7011: Belfast: Place, Identity and Memory in a Contested City

LIB2001: Uses of the Past

Spring

ANT1006: Understanding Northern Ireland: History, Politics and Anthropology

ANT7013: The Anthropology of Music

PhD Supervision

Katharina Bock:Visual Voices: A User Interface – How Online Resources Aid Educational and Community Development (Second Supervisor) HLF-funded.

Catriona Gribben:Exploring the Aural Transmission of Folk Music in Northwest Donegal in Comparison with Pan-Celtic Regions (Second Supervisor) DFE-funded.

Eoin Kearns: Intercultural Understanding and Translocal Interactions: Irish Traditional Music Communities and the Irish State in China (First Supervisor) AHRC-funded.

Holly Mulhern: Taking Medicines at Home: Exploring medication use as a socially embedded phenomenon (Tertiary Supervisor) Funded by the Dunhil Medical Trust.

Dorothea Papadaki:Greek Folk and Popular Music and the Greek Female Diaspora in England (Second Supervisor) DFE-funded.

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