Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

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.

1122503260
Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

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.

34.95 In Stock
Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

by Debra McDougall
Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands

by Debra McDougall

eBook

$34.95 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers

LEND ME® See Details

Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781785330216
Publisher: Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date: 01/30/2016
Series: ASAO Studies in Pacific Anthropology , #6
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 308
File size: 7 MB

About the Author

Debra McDougall is Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. She co-edited Christian Politics in Oceania with Matt Tomlinson (Berghahn, 2013) and has published chapters and articles on religion, politics, and sociality.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on Language, Orthography, and Names
Maps

Introduction: On Being a Stranger in a Hospitable Land
 

Chapter 1. Ethnicity, Insularity, and Hospitality
Chapter 2. Ranongga's Shifting Ground
Chapter 3. Incorporating others in violent times
Chapter 4. Bringing the Gospel Ashore
Chapter 5. No love? Dilemmas of Possession
Chapter 6. Estranging Kin: Contests over Tribal Ownership
Chapter 7. Losing passports: Mobility, Urbanization, Ethnicity

Conclusion: Amity and Enmity in an Unreliable State

Bibliography
Index

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews