Engaging with Strangers Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands |
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Author:
| McDougall, Debra |
Series title: | ASAO Studies in Pacific Anthropology Ser. |
ISBN: | 978-1-78533-020-9 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2016 |
Publisher: | Berghahn Books, Incorporated
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Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | AUD $185.95 |
Book Description:
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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...
More Description
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.