Biography

Maria Figueira has a background in Anthropology, having completed her Bachelor’s degree in Coimbra (2017), with a period of mobility at the University of Copenhagen, and her Master’s degree at NOVA University Lisbon (2023). Between 2021 and 2025, she won two IHC competitions for research fellowships in the project ‘TRANSMAT — Transnational Materialities (1850-1930): Reconstituting collections and connecting histories’ (PTDC/FER-HFC/2793/2020), having worked on the history of the colonial provenance collection of the Santos Rocha Municipal Museum in Figueira da Foz. As a result, in 2025 she joined the curatorial team for the exhibition ‘Facing the Colonial Legacy in the Museum’ held at that museum. She is currently developing her doctoral project ‘Exposições, coleções coloniais e suas (in)visibilidades (1884-1940). Construção e disseminação de conhecimentos em museus portugueses: uma perspetiva comparativa e transnacional‘ [Exhibitions, colonial collections and their (in)visibilities (1884–1940). Construction and dissemination of knowledge in Portuguese museums: a comparative and transnational perspective] (2024.00880.BDANA), supported by a mixed FCT scholarship at the Institute of Contemporary History, University of Évora / IN2PAST.

Research fields

• History of anthropology
• Museology
• Colonial collections
• Provenance research

Selected publications

• Figueira, Maria, Quintino Lopes & Elisabete Pereira. “Coleções coloniais em Portugal e suas invisibilidades: João Jardim e o Museu Municipal da Figueira da Foz.” História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos (in press).
• Pereira, Elisabete, Liliana Caldeira, Maria Figueira, Francisca Laevski, Ana Ferreira & Quintino Lopes. “Colecionismo e contextos coloniais no Museu Nacional de Arqueologia e Museu Municipal Santos Rocha (1893-1930).” História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos (in press).

Main projects

• ‘Exposições, coleções coloniais e suas (in)visibilidades (1884-1940). Construção e disseminação de conhecimentos em museus portugueses: uma perspetiva comparativa e transnacional‘ [Exhibitions, colonial collections and their (in)visibilities (1884–1940). Construction and dissemination of knowledge in Portuguese museums: a comparative and transnational perspective] — PhD thesis to be presented to the University of Évora, supervised by Elisabete Pereira (IHC — Universidade de Évora), Maria Manuela Silva (Museu Municipal Santos Rocha), and Lennon Mhishi (University of British Columbia). Individual PhD project funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (2024.00880.BDANA). 2025-
• Research fellow of the project “TRANSMAT — Transnational Materialities (1850-1930): Reconstituting collections and connecting histories” — Coordinated by Elisabete Pereira (IHC — University of Évora) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/FER-HFC/2793/2020). 2021-2025 [link]