Rita Segato is an Argentine anthropologist, with a Ph.D. from the Department of Social Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology (1984). She is Emeritus Professor at the University of Brasilia, having taught in the Anthropology, Bioethics and Human Rights programs; senior Researcher at the Brazilian National Council for Scientific Research (CNPq); and Director of the Rita Segato Chair of Uncomfortable Thought at the National University of San Martín, Argentina. Her work has been translated into a number of languages, and she is the recipient of numerous academic awards. As a human rights activist she created and directed the project ‘Speak up, prisoner! The human right to speak in prison’ at the Brasilia penitentiary, which was later adapted to prisons in the province of Buenos Aires. She co-authored (in collaboration with José Jorge de Carvalho) the first proposal for affirmative action for the admission of black and indigenous students to Brazilian public higher education, and between 2003 and 2011, she accompanied the FUNAI workshops for indigenous women within all regions of Brazil on issues of human rights, gender and violence. She has appeared as an expert witness or judge in tribunals dealing with human rights, including the project ‘Preventing Gender Violence: Experiences and Lessons Learned in Latin America and the Caribbean’ for the United Nations Regional Spotlight Program.