Abstract
■ A political ecology approach is used to revisit the 1970s debate between Douglas and Leach on one side, and Harris on the other, in order to highlight methodological issues concerning spatial differentiation expressing cultural complexity as well as to demonstrate how opposing phenomenological and rationalist epistemologies can be mediated. The two sides of the debate concerning pigs as ambiguous and taboo creatures are shown to be related to two different sets of human—animal relationships and to vary spatially in different parts of the Sertão of Northeast Brazil. Consequently, the combination of the two contrasting approaches in one unified theoretical perspective results in a better overview than that produced by each one taken by itself.
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