The civil conflict in Solomon Islands (1998-2003) is often blamed on the
failure of the nation-state to encompass culturally diverse and
politically fragmented communities. Writing of Ranongga Island, the
author tracks engagements with strangers across many realms of
life--pre-colonial warfare, Christian conversion, logging and
conservation, even post-conflict state building. She describes startling
reversals in which strangers become attached to local places, even as
kinspeople are estranged from one another and from their homes. Against
stereotypes of rural insularity, she argues that a distinctive
cosmopolitan openness to others is evident in the rural Solomons in
times of war and peace.