Os textos reunidos neste livro resultam da interseção de duas posições teórico-políticas defendidas pela antropóloga argentina Rita Segato: a perspectiva crítica da colonialidade do poder e uma prática disciplinar que a autora denomina antropologia por demanda, pressupondo uma inversão do próprio trabalho etnográfico, que passa a se colocar a serviço das “demandas” de comunidades e povos, seus objetos de estudo. A partir dessa nova perspectiva, Rita Segato – uma das intelectuais e feministas mais influentes da contemporaneidade – constrói um sólido repertório conceitual abordando questões urgentes de nosso tempo, como as hierarquias de gênero e de raça agravadas pelo processo da colonial-modernidade, a universalidade dos direitos humanos, a violência contra as mulheres. Costurando todos estes ensaios está um projeto histórico alternativo, de valores próprios e intencionalmente disfuncional ao capitalismo. Rita Segato nos oferece um pensamento original e engajado, forjado em décadas de pesquisas, ativismo e do magistério, tendo o Brasil como principal campo de atuação e análise. A leitura da obra nos convoca, portanto, a um necessário – e muitas vezes incômodo – processo de autorreflexão.
Author
Rita Laura Segato is an Argentine-Brazilian academic, who has been called "one of Latin America's most celebrated feminist anthropologists" and "one of the most lucid feminist thinkers of this era". She is specially known for her research oriented towards gender in indigenous villages and Latin American communities, violence against women and the relationships between gender, racism and colonialism. One of her specialist areas is the study of gender violence. Segato was born in Buenos Aires and educated at the Instituto Interamericano de Etnomusicología y Folklore de Caracas. She has an MA and a PhD in anthropology (1984) from Queens University, Belfast. She teaches Anthropology at the University of Brasilia, where she holds the UNESCO Chair of Anthropology and Bioethics; since 2011 she has taught on the Postgraduate Programme of Bioethics and Human Rights. She additionally carries out research on behalf of Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. In 2016, along with Prudencio García Martínez, Segato was an expert witness in the Sepur Zarco case, in which senior officers at a military base in Guatemala were convicted of crimes against humanity as a result of the holding of fourteen women in sexual and domestic slavery. The defence tried to challenge the expertise of the witnesses, but their appeal was unsuccessful. Her works were an inspiration to the Chilean collective Las Tesis from Valparaíso for the song and performance A Rapist in Your Path, which was performed by women throughout America, Europe and Australia.
