ABSTRACT
A steady rise in access to information technology and new musical media has impacted the flux and flow of remote Aboriginal community life in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Yolngu in this region still grapple with tensions from a proliferation of social pressures brought by government welfare agendas, business ventures and alternative enterprises. Yet music continues to play a fundamental role in mediating changing intercultural and intergenerational relations. Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s concept of ‘rhythmanalysis’, Magowan shows how structured and unstructured sounds and musical rhythms of everyday life in Galiwin’ku, northeast Arnhem Land, influence sensual spaces of being and belonging in ways that are both coherent and contradictory. Amidst the routine rhythms of everyday life, a ‘politics of aurality’ circumscribes Yolngu rhythms of place-making, creating, in turn, a relatively autonomous domain of diverse music making practices.
