African drumming in Australia: White men can’t drum?

This essay asks and attempts to address questions of identity that are raised by the practice of African drumming in Australia. These are as follows: what stereotypes are invoked in the marketing and practice of African drumming events in Australia, and do these stereotypes remain fixed in a context where participants have diverse ethnic heritage, and drum for a variety of reasons? Does the popularity of African drumming in Australia across a wide range of social and ideological groupings point to a desire to trace roots to an ultimate African homeland? Can this popularity also be read as a ‘re-embedding’ response in reaction to the disembedded1 aspects of a globalised, particularly urban, Australia?