Acknowledgments

I want to thank, more than anyone, Mark Moora, whose dreams animate this book. I hope that these pages convey his generosity of spirit, strength of vision, and enduring legacy. Thank you to his children, Eric, Andrea, and Sophie Moora, who have been so welcoming over the years and who carry his memory and hopes into the future.

With deep gratitude, I would like to express my appreciation to everyone who has so graciously shared with me over the decades, especially those at PAKAM and Goolarri and in Balgo. This project was serendipitously inspired by Peter Brennan, who connected me with Kira Fong. Kira brought me into the world of Goolarri and Broome in 2006, leading to several late-night backyard jams with Steve Pigram and many other talented musicians in Broome. Thank you to everyone at Goolarri who graciously worked with me over the years, many of whom became mates, including Arthur Hunter, Mark Cochrane, Nigel Abbott, Kimberley West, Kira Fong, Sandy Dann, Renee Aharon, Mikaela Carter, Jodie Bell, Dot West, Koiki Hamaguchi, Elaine Rabbit, and the late Baamba Albert.

This project would not have been possible without Neil Turner’s kindness and generosity. Neil welcomed me into PAKAM, throwing me into “the deep end” in 2013, when I drove an old troopy out to Balgo for Kurrarlkatjanu, leading to the many other films I was fortunate enough to collaborate on. I want to thank everyone else involved with PAKAM, including Trevor Ishiguchi, Henry Augustine, Dunba Nunju, Anna Cadden, Micah Bartlett, Anne Bennett, Bernadette Angus, Joe Pickering, Micha Bartlett, Jan Cattoni, and the late Clint Dixon, whose skill and laughter I will never forget. I also want to thank Rosemarie Colosi and Billy Watson, who welcomed me into Yungngora Community.

My fieldwork took me to many unexpected places, but none was more meaningful than Balgo. I want to deeply thank Warwick Nieass, who shared innumerable hopes, dreams, and meals with me over many journeys. Thank you to those involved in PAKAM projects in Balgo, including David “Shorty” Young, Allison Gill, Jimmy Tchooga, Larry Gundora, Ribnga Green, Bob Dingle, Helicopter Tjungurrayi, William Mandijarra, and David Banjo. I especially want to thank the Elders at the Kapululangu Women’s Law and Culture Centre, most of whom have passed away, including Payi Payi Sunfly Napangarti, Linda Charmawina Napangarti, Manaya Sarah Daniels Napanangka, Mayan Kathleen Padoon Napanangka, and Marti Maude Napanangka. I also want to thank the other Balgo women I worked with, including Marie Mudgedell, Eva Nagamora, Sadie Padoon, Lady Gordon, Brenda Brown, Tossie Baadjo, Frances Nowee, Jane Gimme, and Latoya Moody. I want to thank Quinton Milner and the many other multitalented Balgo musicians, including Aaron Milner, Delton Galova, Deryl Yumarrie, Bobby Daniels, and the late Ronald Mosquito, who was also a gifted and beloved translator. Thank you to the multitude of other project collaborators in Balgo, including Zohl de Ishtar, Suzie Thomas, Sheryl Anderson, Nick Withers, Poppy Lever, Helen Puckey, Katja Nedoluha, Angela Berry, Camille Berthelier, Jamie Hayden, Jaz Brooks, Rowena Potts, Staf Smith, Angie Reid, Tom Vidot, Giancarlo Mazzella, and Tibor Hegedis.

I thank everyone at the Indigenous Remote Communications Association (now First Nations Media), including Daniel Featherstone, Liam Campbell, and Maor Lambert, as well as everyone at Indigenous Community Television, especially Rita Cattoni, David Slowo, and Ciara Buckley. I also wish to thank the many people in Broome who helped to make it feel like home, including Sarah and Barbara Keenan, Sandy Faber, Sister Pat Rhatigan, Lachie Fraser, Mark Bin Bakar, Mitch Torres, and Kylie Jennings.

This project could not have been carried out without generous grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Fulbright IIE U.S. Scholar Program, the Lois Roth Endowment, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and Bowdoin College. I want to express my appreciation to everyone at the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, including Tangerine Holt, Alex Maclaurin, Pablo Jiménez, and Cynthia Griffin.

I thank all of the academics who provided me with generous feedback, especially my PhD adviser, Jennifer Shannon, who encouraged me from day one and believed that this process was possible, even and especially when I doubted it myself. None of it would have happened without her, and I remain grateful for her years of support in a thousand moments, big and small, through which her brilliant and ethically nuanced guidance made all of the difference. I could not have asked for a better adviser. I also want to thank the rest of my committee for their generous feedback, including Carla Jones and her penchant for identifying and elevating the best in students and for our many inspiring chats, which among other insights led specifically to the structure of chapter 6; Donna Goldstein for her many encouragements and for helping me to step back to see the bigger picture; Faye Ginsburg for her years of support, repeatedly going out of her way to provide me with incisive feedback, as well as helping to orient me within the larger scholarly debates and social networks relating to Indigenous media; and John Carty for his cheerful and grounded wisdom based on his years of fieldwork in and around Balgo. Each of my committee members generously made time to regularly engage with me in critical and earnest ways, and I will remain forever grateful.

I thank other U.S. faculty who provided invaluable feedback and support over the years, including Paul Shankman, Kira Hall, Kaifa Roland, Danika Medak-Saltzman, Matt Sponheimer, Carole McGranahan, Chris Hammons, Clint Carroll, Angelica Lawson, Sylvie Poirier, Jennifer Deger, Fred Myers, Elizabeth Povinelli, Audra Simpson, Lisa Messeri, Daniel Fisher, Lisa Stefanoff, Kristen Dowell, Christina Leza, Chloe Ahmann, Salma Monani, Joseph Weiss, and Justin Latici. I appreciate the tireless work of the administrators in the University of Colorado Boulder Anthropology Department, including Valerie McBride, Lesa Morris, Diana Wilson, and Alison Davidson.

I thank all of the scholars at the University of Notre Dame Australia and the Nulungu Research Institute in Broome, including Bruce Gorring, Sandra Wooltorton, Maya Haviland, Patrick Sullivan, Stephen Kinnane, Anna Dwyer, Kathryn Thorburn, Melissa Marshall, Stephen Muecke, Renata Cetinich, and Bobbie Chew Bigby. I also want to thank everyone at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at Australian National University, who generously hosted me in Canberra, including Mick Dodson, Cressida Fforde, Corinne Walsh, Annie Te One, Ed Wensing, Magali McDuffie, and Diana Anderssen. I thank the other scholars in Canberra who provided valuable feedback on my developing ideas, including David MacDougall, Kaely Woods, Inge Kral, Nicolas Peterson, Howard Morphy, Francesca Merlan, and Vince Redhouse. I am also grateful for the generous feedback from other Australian scholars, including David Kelly, Emma Kowal, Sarah Pink, Sandy Toussaint, Jackie Healy, Michael McCall, and Richard Davis. This project would not have been possible without my past mentors, including Muriel Blaisdell, Mark McPhail, John Cinnamon, Linda Marchant, Rob Tolley, Richard Clemmer-Smith, Bonnie Clark, Christina Kreps, and Peter van Arsdale.

While I was reimagining this book at the height of both the pandemic and my own writing challenges, several people helped to guide me in this crucial period through manuscript workshopping, including Melinda Hinkson, Yasmine Musharbash, Bunny McBride, and Harald Prins. I am particularly grateful to Lucas Bessire, who provided the deepest insights when I needed them most, and without whom the form of this book would not exist. I also wish to express my appreciation to Bowdoin College, which has provided generous financial support and a community of many brilliant colleagues and students who challenge me to think in new ways.

I express a heartfelt thank you to Jason Weidemann, who believed in this book from our first meeting amid the AAA conference book room bustle. He and Zenyse Miller guided it throughout the publication process with such care and professionalism. I appreciate the time and labor that everyone else at the University of Minnesota Press devoted to this project, including Shelby Connelly, Eric Lundgren, Rachel Moeller, Terence Smyre, Michael Stoffel, cover designer Adrianna Sutton, the external readers, and the faculty board. I also thank Laura Portwood-Stacer for supporting my book proposal.

I am grateful to my graduate school colleagues and friends in Colorado for their support and feedback, including Allison Formanack, Dani Merriman, Dawa Lokyitsang, Kathryn White, Meryleen Mena, Chris Morris, Erin Baxter, Ben Joffe, Magda Stawkowski, Marnie Thomson, Michaela Howells, James Loudon, Kate Fischer, Rachel Fleming, Richard Bender, Morgan Seamont, Teresa Montoya, Dave Bailey, Erik Reinhart, and Ethan Raath. Finally, I could not have done any of this without my wife, Anna, our daughter, Zelda, and my mom, dad, and sister: Judy, Barry, and Sarah.

While I am listed as the sole author of this book (and all errors are mine alone), countless people helped to bring it to fruition. Anything that it has to offer is due to their generosity.