Critique of the concept of "locus of speech"

Abstract

The critique in this article focuses on the concept of “Place of Speech” developed and presented by philosopher Djamila Ribeiro in her book *What Is Place of Speech?* (Ribeiro, 2017). The central thread of this critique consists of reflections and theses by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in the book Pascalian Meditations (2007), as well as my own field experience conducted as part of my master’s and doctoral research in Jardim Gramacho (Duque de Caxias/RJ). Ribeiro seems to commit the “scholastic error” pointed out by Bourdieu, in which the philosopher transfigures the lived world and experiences it within her own privately conceived scholastic world. The author defines the social location of the Black woman using herself as a reference (“ego-history”) and renders the notion of the white man abstract, which produces theoretical caricatures disconnected from the practical world and, above all, from the capitalist mode of production. In Jardim Gramacho, as an empirical context, black women, despite sharing with the author the core attributes of race and gender, distance themselves from the philosopher due to their class condition, which needs to be critically addressed—something the author fails to do.