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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 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.

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.

The article discusses the material dimensions of communications in the context of warfare and raiding at the interface of oral and written communication in southwestern Africa during the 19th century. The auditory reality of warfare included not only warcries and battlefield calls but also the \"voices\" of a new materiality - that of the letter. The letter-writing culture of the Nama/Oorlam had already arisen in pre-colonial times. Letters not only played a key role in the diplomacy of war and peace, but were also a much sought-after type of booty. Finally, the article addresses the vulnerability of messengers, and the medium of the messages they carried. Reprinted by permission of Anthropos Institut