The Didj and the Web

Abstract

Information about the Australian Aboriginal musical instrument, the didjeridu, has spread rapidly and widely over the internet. Analysing more than a hundred didj-related web sites, and monitoring the exchanges on a didjeridu mailing list, I found that the information could be roughly grouped into three categories: new age/world music pages; didjeridu musicians' forums; and Aboriginal community sites. The information represented three types of cultural exchange that ranged from the appropriation of aspects of Aboriginal culture to provide for an urban primitivism, to the articulation of new cultural meanings through the sharing of Aboriginal musical practices. While the didjeridu network does exhibit the appropriation of Aboriginality to achieve non-Aboriginal goals, it also demonstrates the creation of new cultural practices through the agency of marginalised groups, and the production of new communities through the linkages between music practices and cultural identity.