Front and Back Covers, Volume 21, Number 5. October 2005

Abstract

Front and back cover caption, volume 21 issue 5Front coverChildren in the favela (squatter community) of 'Caxambu', in the northern zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although favelas are often depicted as dangerous and as the housing option of last resort, they are also characterized by dense and multi‐stranded social ties between residents, long histories of occupation and settlement, and multi‐generational families. Caxambu (a pseudonym) was originally settled at the beginning of the 20th century, and residents often describe the neighbourhood as a 'big family'. As the photo makes clear, the alleys, street corners and other public spaces in the favela often serve as giant playgrounds for local children.Back coverTHE HUMAN BODYThe photo on the back cover shows one of the exhibits from Gunther von Hagens' anatomical exhibition Body Worlds, discussed by Uli Linke in this issue. The exhibits in this show are fashioned from human corpses. The male figure shown here, the body of a man holding and gazing at his own skin, attempts to convey something about the human skin.The anatomical museum markets corpses, artfully transformed to appeal to the viewer. Body Worlds has toured internationally, and attracted millions of visitors. Dead bodies are transformed into sensually appealing 'works of art', playing to fantasies of the alluring body common to the dream worlds promoted by multinational media and entertainment industries.In the exhibition anatomy and pedagogy, economy and medical science, pathology and human rights are closely intertwined. But where do the bodies come from? The corpses, contrary to the exhibitor's claims, are not supplied by German donors ‐ they are procured from Eastern Europe, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and China, from places where human rights and bioethical standards are not enforced.Von Hagens insists that bodies displayed are from donors, and his exhibition website (www.bodyworlds.com) welcomes donations to its body donation programme. In his body factory in Dalian, China, thousands of corpses, including the remains of executed prisoners, are flayed and prepared for later use. This trade in bodies, a multi‐million‐dollar enterprise, is highly problematic. For the trumpeted 'art of anatomy', with its beautified corpses and eroticized installations, also has a violent dimension, with human victims whose bodies are bought and sold for profit.In November 2002, Gunther von Hagens risked prosecution by holding the first public dissection of a (donated) body in the UK since the 1830s, in London's Atlantis Gallery. The issues surrounding procurement, preparation, dissection and display of human remains are central to anthropology, and in this article Uli Linke discusses in particular the various ways in which this exhbition was interpreted in Germany.