Maria Manuela da Cunha

Maria Manuela Ligeti Carneiro da Cunha is an anthropologist, has a PhD in Social Science from the State University of Campinas (1976) and a BA in mathematics by the Faculté des Sciences de Paris (1967). She did a post-doc at the University of Cambridge. She was a professor at the State University of Campinas and at the University of São Paulo, where she continues to work even after retiring. She was a full professor at the University of Chicago from 1994-2009, where she is now emerita. She had the chair in “savoirs contre pauvretés” at the Collège de France between 2011 and 2012. She is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science and of the Academy of Science of the third world; she is a member of the Observatory of Human Rights in Judicial Power at the National Council of Justice since 2020; she was the president of the Brazilian Association of Anthropology (1986-88). She has received several awards and honors, including the Ordem do Mérito Cientifico, Grã Cruz, the Légion d´Honneur from France, the Roquette-Pinto medal from Brazilian Association of Anthropology and the medal of Francophony from the French Academy. In 2018, she received the Gilberto Velho Excellency Prize for Anthropology. She has published 12 books, 38 articles in academic journals and 32 book chapters and she edited 4 books. At the University of São Paulo, she founded the Group of Indigenous History and Indianism and directed a project on Indigenous History.