Front and Back Covers, Volume 24, Number 3. June 2008

Abstract

Front cover and back cover caption, volume 24 issue 3Front coverFront cover: Front coverIn this issue of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Adrian Peace takes a critical look at the way in which neo‐evolutionary theories and anthropological concepts are brought together in an award‐winning campaign to sell more meat in Australia (his article is debated by four respondents on pp 23–25). Among others adopting a critical perspective, the animal rights movement was outraged at claims made about red meat as a ‘natural’, ‘healthy’ and ‘essential’ part of the average Australian diet. Just as a prominent film star was recruited to the ‘Red Meat – Feel Good’ campaign, the hugely popular Missy Higgins was deployed to front the response from the animal rights movement. The youthful and fresh‐faced Australian singer‐songwriter, cuddling the vulnerable white piglet, iconically represents an informed, intelligent and humane vegetarian approach to the future in the relationship between human and non‐human animals. Higgins here makes a striking plea for ‘enlightenment’. Enlightenment of a different kind is offered by the poster reprinted on the back cover, where an Indian transvestite celebrates the joy of a minority gender identity. Although the rights of both human minorities and non‐human animals may be ‘universal’, they must be rendered in culturally specific terms in order to be politically effective.Back coverBack cover: modern enlightenment in ancient sacred sites‘Be enlightened!’ In 2006 ‘Shelly Innocence’ launched a new phone service in Bodhgaya, Bihar, offering customers the opportunity to receive personal text messages of Enlightenment™ on their mobile phones. Large billboards with images of this virtual transgendered guru were erected outside the main temple to advertise the service.Not only is Bodhgaya a site of inspiration for millions of Buddhists around the world, but the seat of enlightenment has also come to mean very different things as this cosmopolitan pilgrimage town goes global.For many decades the state of Bihar, where Bodhgaya is located, has been one of the least attractive destinations for pilgrims, tourists and anthropologists because of its notorious reputation as one of the most impoverished and ‘lawless’ states in the country. However in recent years the Mahabodhi Temple complex in Bodhgaya has become the object of global attention as a UNESCO World Heritage site, setting in motion a series of initiatives to encourage tourism and city development plans.As a result of new conservation policies and demands on the built environment, the World Heritage designation has become invested with a diverse set of claims and meanings by various stakeholders and religious communities. As a site of dense historical, religious and political significance, Bodhgaya today is a unique locus where spiritual and digital worlds collide in the shade of the bodhi tree.