Sacred Cows and New Environmental Realities in Rajasthan, India

Khandelwal outlines the different approaches to meat and animal products that dominate anthropology, feminist research, and South Asian studies. On the one hand are deeply-held meanings about, for example, sacred cows that are embedded in local and national politics. On the other hand, we can chart the materiality of environmental decline and globalization. Khandewlwal argues that it is more urgent than ever to synthesize analyses of the symbolic and material, the local and global.