Editors' foreword

Abstract

This special issue of Sibirica is guest-edited by Joachim Otto Habeck, and the Editors applaud his work to bring together this excellent group of papers resulting from a conference he organized at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. Dr Habeck is Coordinator of the Siberian Studies Centre at the MPI, which is now well established as a key institution in the anthropology of Siberia. The conference included scholars from several disciplines, and thus publication in Sibirica seemed to be the perfect choice, reflecting the journal's commitment to cross-disciplinary conversations on the region. This first issue of the fourth volume of Sibirica marks the advent of a new group of editors. Cathryn Brennan and Alan Wood have decided to step down as Editors, although Dr Brennan will remain active with the journal as an Associate Editor. We are greatly indebted to their years of hard work to establish Sibirica as a worldclass scholarly journal. Alexander King has taken on the primary responsibility as editor, and he will be closely supported by an active group of