IMEMS Research Showcase: Benjamin Raffield (University of Uppsala), 'Slavery in the Viking Age.'

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.