The special theme of this issue of Soundings is traversal politics - a term which attempts to conceptualize a democratic practice of talking across difference. The idea is to find ways of doing things which involve neither the imposition of a single universe which refuses to recognize that there really are differences, nor the retreat into those differences as tightly-bound, exclusivist and essentialist - to find a creative ways of crossing (and possibly redrawing) the borders that mark significant politicized differences; and to find forms of empathy not based on sameness, ways of shifting which don't involve tearing up your roots. The essays are based on a series of dialogues between groups involved in bridge-building or translating projects - whether in war-riven and violent countries and communities, within the complexitites of anti-racist politics, or through the sharing of experiences through community writing and theatre.