Fundação Getulio Vargas’ School of Social Sciences (FGV CPDOC) is carrying out a project called “Indigenous Document Heritage: Collaborative Work Between FGV CPDOC and the Apinajé People.” In February 2022, FGV CPDOC received the personal archives of anthropologist Roberto DaMatta as a donation. Between 1962 and 1970, DaMatta spent various seasons among the Apinajé people while doing research that led to his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University and that resulted in the book “A Divided World: The Social Structure of the Apinajé Indians,” published in 1976. The archives donated by DaMatta include more than 2,000 photographs and dozens of audiovisual tapes, recording the Apinajé people and their places and rituals.

In June 2022, the director of FGV CPDOC, Celso Castro, got in touch with Apinajé leaders, initiating a process of collaboration that resulted in this project, which started in March 2023. The collaborative work will lead to the identification and organization of this rich material, as well as the constitution of broader historical and cultural heritage of great importance to the Apinajé people.

As a result of the project, FGV CPDOC also now has two Apinajé students doing its Professional Master’s in Cultural Heritage and Social Projects, who started the course in March 2023: Andressa Iremex and Emílio Dias, a teacher at Pepkro Indigenous School and the president of the Association of Apinajé Villages (PEMPXÀ), respectively. The project also involves anthropologist Odair Giraldin, who has been studying the Apinajé people since the 1990s.