XXIth Century Cannibalism: Popular Interest on an Old Anthropological Concern

Abstract

In this paper I analise the dialogue between western and non-western indigenous cannibalism. I make reference to the cannibal evidences from a western point of view, and to the ideological fight not only to expel it from our culture but also to invest in it the role of fundametal marker or fetish condensing of all evils of Otherness. Yet, starting in the XXth Century, we find a number of episodes approaching cannibalism (real and symbolic) to western popular culture, thus refashioning the former relationship between cannibalism and evil to the point of losing its diacritic place as fundamental marker of cultural differences. This paves the way to artistic eccentricities, but also to organ trafficking. I end with a reference to the ways in which the anthropology of ths last century contributed both the the making and unmaking of the myth of cannibalism.