This book is one more step towards accomplishing the mission the World Council of Anthropological Associations has set up. I am particularly pleased that this publication will bring the possibility of debate about world anthropologies to the growing Chinese anthropological community. Hopefully, it will one day be published in one or more of the languages spoken in China. I would like to thank our Chinese colleagues not only for their hospitality in Kunming, but also for this opportunity to disseminate our ideas in their country. Finally, I thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for sponsoring the symposium in Kunming, and all the authors who took their time to rework their papers into the texts that follow this foreword.