By Thiago Gabriel 
This article, the result of an interview with Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak, Brazil’s only university professor of its Mura indigenous people, is part of a series created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the Digital Brazil Project on environmental justice in the favelas for RioOnWatch.
“Our biggest challenges, beyond lack of resources and official recognition by the State, are the frequent attacks from that very State, alongside developers, who insist on expelling us from our ancestral territory to carry out their projects. We recently received an eviction order, but we mobilized important political forces nationally and internationally for the demarcation of our lands, the official recognition of our Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University [UIPAM], and the restoration of the building that once housed the Indigenous Museum to honor its history in support of the struggles of indigenous peoples. In addition to honoring the memory of indigenous peoples, [UIPAM] also serves as a safe space, since we are already a living museum. Its preservation should be treated as urgent by a city that invaded the forest!” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
The Only Mura University Professor Reflects on the Importance of UIPAM
Raised in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak, PhD, a professor at the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University (UIPAM), belongs to the Mura people and speaks Arawak as her first language. Founder of the Ancestral Matriarchal Collective, she states that forest education can be the solution to the problems generated by coloniality and modernity. She describes the importance of the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University for the city, but above all for those who live and resist in Aldeia Maracanã (Maracanã Village), an indigenous village in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, which has been rebuilding and growing since pre-2016 Olympic forced evictions.
“We continue to resist and defend our body-territory. In Maracanã Village, life, autonomy, self-management, and forest education are part of the daily routine, and everything is being shared at the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University (UIPAM). Every day, we welcome students and teachers from state, municipal, and federal schools and universities. Life unfolds at the Multiethnic University, as we are a multiethnic village, and each ethnic group is a university: a territory that generates ethnoknowledge [knowledge systems of traditional peoples, deeply rooted in their cosmologies, ways of life, and resistance to colonial structures]. We created the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University without important resources and structure; the autonomy of our university was built by indigenous people themselves. We face daily challenges, yet we generate our own knowledge through practice and manage our own territory. UIPAM has influenced and redefined the perception of indigenous cultures in the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro. Every day, it welcomes universities, schools, and other national and international institutions for debates, collective action, classes, workshops, and immersive experiences, promoting critical intercultural education. Many of our professors teach at other universities and schools, spreading knowledge and challenging dominant narratives.” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
According to Professor Arawak, the solution to the environmental and climate crisis is ancestral. The only path to the future is to move beyond the supposed “discovery of America.” It is by overcoming European coloniality worldwide and laying new foundations rooted in respect for the body-territory that humanity can survive itself. Indigenous, original, and ancestral technologies are required to save the world from the legacy of destruction left by white-European technologies.
“(Our) cultural and political resistance… includes transitioning beyond the ecological emergency and environmental crisis, through indigenous practices as technological alternatives that tackle environmental challenges and counter commercial development that destroys life and nature, generating scarcity and violence. The UIPAM project lays out the foundations and principles of indigenous land stewardship to be recognized by and partner with educational and public institutions. The Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University is a space for gathering, knowledge-sharing, coordinating actions, (re)producing collective knowledge, communication, social struggle, (re)defining strategies, joint action, and strengthening the resistance of indigenous peoples and traditional communities—including quilombola, Afro-descendant, fishing, artisanal, rural and favela communities—resistance groups from communities impacted by capitalist mega-projects and mega-events, people living in urban peripheries, as well as students and researchers who are engaged and recognized for their commitment to resistance movements and insurgencies.” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
In addition to its technological contribution to society, the indigenous university also acts as a center for training and political advocacy. Especially in a period of democratic fragility, UIPAM plays a key role in strengthening Brazilian democracy.
“The university also serves as a space for critical political education on the dominant socioeconomic and cultural development model, proposing perspectives and strategies to overcome it within the geopolitical context of the globalized capitalist model city [host of the 2014 World Cup, the 2016 Olympics, and the 2024 G20]… This space also works to reclaim perspectives of action, the political-pedagogical project, and the principles of community governance within the resistance movements and the university-village of the Maracanã peoples, promoting research, education, and the recognition of the wisdom and science of traditional peoples, in addition to higher education. UIPAM’s objective is to amplify and strengthen indigenous struggles, both for those in villages and in urban areas. It engages in national and international debates on public policies for indigenous peoples, including official conferences. It is a pioneer in discussions on the erasure of indigenous peoples in the city, having debated for over two decades the presence of indigenous people in urban contexts and the recovery of those who have lost awareness of their indigenous identity. UIPAM is a laboratory for political mobilization and education through the lens of indigenous culture, presenting alternative worldviews…, while also functioning as a refuge for both national and international indigenous peoples. With Rio de Janeiro having the largest proportion of non-village-residing indigenous people [in Brazil], UIPAM has been essential for the recognition and strengthening of indigenous identity.” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
A University That Teaches How to Overcome Today’s Challenges Through Ancestral Knowledge
Since 2006, UIPAM has addressed the challenges and aspirations of urban indigenous communities in Brazil by providing a space for gathering, knowledge-sharing, collective organization, collective knowledge production, communication, social struggle, and strengthening the resistance of indigenous peoples and traditional communities. This space fosters critical political education on the dominant socio-political and economic development model and proposes perspectives and strategies to overcome it, particularly in the urban context of Rio de Janeiro.
Professor Lima believes that the restoration of the old Indigenous Museum building should be urgently carried out by the State, as a safe space that welcomes indigenous people as they travel outside villages to Rio de Janeiro, allowing them to be themselves in the heart of the city.
“We are already an ‘Indigenous Reference and Welcome Center,’ as indigenous people from Brazil and around the world find refuge at Maracanã Village. When indigenous people arrive in Rio de Janeiro, they seek out Maracanã Village. The Indigenous Museum building should be designated a material heritage site and landmark of collective memory, and we, the indigenous people who are part of the movement and the indigenous university, should be recognized as living and intangible heritage.” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
Once renovated, the building that once housed the Indigenous Museum should become headquarters to the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University. This living museum would establish partnerships, agreements, and exchanges with the Federal Intercultural Indigenous University, which Brazil’s Ministry of Education (MEC) and Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) are in the process of creating.
UIPAM has been training teachers and students daily through free-thinking, decolonial political education. Due to its unique nature, many national and international partnerships and exchanges have emerged, growing networks and strengthening Maracanã Village as a whole.
In 2024, the Ancestral Matriarchal Collective, active in the resistance and development of UIPAM, was awarded a grant from Brazil’s National Arts Foundation (FUNARTE) and is building more shelter spaces and improving the village’s infrastructure, including its kitchen.
When asked what message she would leave for those who are still unfamiliar with what is happening in Maracanã Village and with the knowledge produced by the Maracanã Village Multiethnic Indigenous University, the professor extends an invitation to the public to visit the university and take part in building alternatives to the climate and environmental crisis. The knowledge that will save the world is ancestral: everyone must put it into practice to reverse the damage caused by modernity.
“Come meet us, get to know our projects and actions so that you can feel the pulse of ancestral memory and experience our practices. I would also like to say that everyone in Brazil has an Indigenous or Black ancestor in their family tree, so they should not deny this legacy, which holds the knowledge and technology capable of solving the climate crisis.” — Mônica Lima Mura Manaú Arawak
Tekohaw Marakà’nã, the Maracanã Multiethnic Village, located on what had been a parking lot next to Maracanã stadium in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, represents the resistance of indigenous ancestry—even beneath the asphalt brought by colonization, which it has been literally breaking up through agroecological actions. A Latin American epicenter for the reclaiming of territories by indigenous people in an urban context, Tekohaw Marakà’nã is also a gateway to the forest in the middle of the city. UIPAM is the result of generations of indigenous resistance, of those who fight for their epistemologies to underpin teaching, research, and outreach, to receive investment, and to become public and educational policies.
About the Author: Dayse Alves is a teacher and a grassroots communicator trained by the Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação (NPC), born and raised in Duque de Caxias.