“Speaking Place”. This was the familiar-yet-enigmatic phrase encountered by the audience as we took our seats for the highly anticipated 2025 Taylor Lecture. Fortunately for us, however, we were about to be taken on a fascinating journey through the minds and workings of numerous feminist thinkers to discover the significance of this concept, led by none other than award-winning Brazilian philosopher, Djamila Ribeiro.
Djamila Ribeiro is a Brazilian activist, writer, and coordinator of the Plural Feminisms initiative who has authored an array of best-selling, award-winning publications, with a total of more than 1 million copies sold. Most recently, she received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and in 2021, her Pequeno Manual Antirracista (2019) won the Humanities category of the Jabuti Prize, Brazil’s most prestigious literary award. Following its recent publication in English, however, it was her inaugural text Lugar de Fala (2017), translated as Where We Stand (2024), which she shared with her eager Oxford audience.
Having worked at a host of academic institutions, including the University of São Paulo and New York University, Ribeiro is no stranger to a university setting. As she greeted us with a rousing “Boa tarde”, we immediately felt at ease in her presence. Within mere minutes of taking the stage, it was clear that she had established the lecture hall as a palpably transparent environment in which every voice would be validated and heard. It was thus no surprise when, after just a moment’s encouragement from Ribeiro, we showed no hesitancy in returning her greeting with our own enthusiastic reply: “Boa tarde!”.
Her lecture, in which she sought to clarify the disputed meaning of “speaking place” and give voice to the plethora of unheard black female voices in Philosophy, was testament to this visibility and truthfulness. As she led us through the central thesis of her book, Where We Stand, Ribeiro introduced us to a multitude of female thinkers who, despite their prodigious quantity, are rarely cited in Philosophy, cast aside instead by the white, male voices of Western thinking. In a deconstruction of this Eurocentric, heteronormative norm, therefore, Ribeiro invoked the names and works of thinkers such as Grada Kilomba, Lélia Gonzalez, and Luiza Bairros, all of whom have made notable (yet often neglected) contributions to the concept of the “speaking place”. A key part of this philosophy, as Ribeiro pointed out, is Bairros’ feminist standpoint theory, wherein she labels the inability for certain individuals to be justly present in domains such as universities, the media, and institutional politics as a prevailing reason for their inability to be heard or categorised as individual voices.
What was perhaps most admirable, however, was the way in which Djamila Ribeiro strengthened this vibrant map of thinkers by enriching it with her own experiences as a black, Brazilian woman. This personal perspective was not only a defining aspect of her lecture, but also provides an important foundation for her writing, and it is likely due to such authenticity that it is valued so highly. In a roomful of aspiring academics, of which a large proportion were women ourselves, this kind of representation was thus deeply affecting for, although the contribution made by white male philosophers cannot be disputed (as Ribeiro herself pointed out), these voices represent only a fraction of the population.
Fittingly, therefore, it was the following quotation by Jota Mombaça, taken from Ribeiro’s Where We Stand, with which Phillip Rothwell introduced the lecture: “The political gesture of inviting a cis Euro-white man to be quiet and think before speaking introduces, in reality, a rupture in the regime of authorization already in force." And this was precisely what Ribeiro succeeded in doing, as was proven by the series of thought-provoking questions by which the lecture was followed – posed entirely by women. This can only be described as testament to Djamila Ribeiro’s strength as an empowered and empowering woman to inspire other women around her to follow suit. We truly could not have asked for a more memorable start to Trinity sixth week, and there is little doubt that, as a result of the ninety minutes we spent together with Ribeiro, copies of her book will be flying off Blackwell’s shelves at an even faster rate than they already were.
Many thanks go not only to Djamila Ribeiro, but also to Dr Gui Perdigão, Prof Phillip Rothwell, the Camões Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, and all those involved in making the event possible.