Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that the on-going effort to turn interculturality into a globally oriented educational theme must be accompanied by a profound consideration of its conceptual and terminological premises, and that a critical gaze must be turned on the geopolitics of knowledge from which interculturality draws legitimation. By bringing together several threads of interculturality, the book explores the risks of failure within Intercultural Education to recognise the different ways of knowing by which people across the globe run their lives and give meaning to their existence. The book argues that the act of translating interculturality into interculturalidad in some regions of the world is more than a shift of semantic content between English and Spanish.