如果說1960和1970年代臺灣人類學漢人研究的焦點是放在清代的文化與社會，那便表示關於當代中國的研究仍有一大塊強烈的好奇心尚未被滿足。中國開放學者從事田野調查，開啟了一個關注當前現象的新研究時期，不僅在中國研究方面是如此，在臺灣的人類學方面也一樣。海峽兩岸社會的中產階級轉型，都為兩地人類學研究進入新階段創造了適當的環境。對人類學的中國研究而言，中產階級已經成為研究誰進入其中和誰成為邊緣人的決定性因素。中產階級特徵在今日的人類學中成為主導性議題，從個人主義的出現、商品化及追尋商品的自我滿足，到在不穩定和階級快速變化的環境中搏得一席之地，到民族主義，甚至到擁有汽車所帶來的影響等。中國與台灣的對照，突顯出關於中國的各派民族學共用一個相同的研究和分析框架。儘管這個框架並非由共同的理論方法所界定，但卻可能有助於批判性地擴展到包含臺灣在內的研究議題。

If the major endeavor of Taiwan anthropology's study of the ethnic Han during the 1960s and 1970s focused on dimensions of culture and society harking back to the Qing dynasty, there remained in the background a powerful but unsatisfied curiosity regarding contemporary China. The opening up of China to fieldwork initiated a period of new concern with the present, in China research, to be sure, but also for anthropology in Taiwan. The middle-class transformation of society on both sides of the Taiwan Straits created the environment for a new phase of anthropological research. For China anthropology the middle class has become a defining element in the study both of those who are in it and those marginal to it. Middle-class characteristics now dominate this anthropology, ranging from the emergence of individualism and the triumph of the commodified and commodity-seeking self to the struggle for place in an insecure and rapidly changing class setting, to nationalism, and even to the impact of automobile ownership. Contrasts with Taiwan highlight and make explicit how China ethnologies share a framework of research and analysis, albeit one not defined by shared theoretical approaches, but nevertheless one that might be usefully and critically expanded to include comparable areas of concern in Taiwan.