Whose reason? Where do we speak from? On political implications of standpoint epistemology

In this talk, I will reconstruct a strand in the tradition of so-called standpoint epistemology that has its roots in the decolonial reception of Foucault and has led led to the emergence of the notion of "lugar de fala" (the place from which one speaks), a concept that plays a prominent role in contemporary public debate in Brazil. I will show that a misleading interpretation of this notion reduces its discursive potential to a hermetic and self-justified narrative of subjective experiences - which I call "affects as properties''. By contrast, I claim that its main political relevance is to overcome epistemic injustices, correcting defective uses of reason by focusing on the socially mediated vocabulary of subjective narratives.

Everyone interested is welcome!