Based on 15 months of field research (2000-2001) with Aboriginal rock, reggae and country musicians from towns and remote communities across the central desert region, this research project approaches music making as a medium for expressing, negotiating and contesting different ways of being male and Indigenous in contemporary central Australia. I followed the musicians, all men and aged 20-80 years old, as they made, rehearsed and performed their music in the Aboriginal recording studio, in remote Aboriginal desert communities, in regional towns and on tours beyond their ancestral homelands.

In the analysis, I develop the concept of intercultural mediation to show how aspects of global, national and local musical and gendered ideas, imagery, values, practices and aesthetic traditions inform the ways the musicians continue to craft meaningful senses of themselves as Aboriginal and men.