By Luciana Gracioso, Caroline Periotto, Felipe Arakaki, Luzia Costa, and Jair de Jesus Massa (Desana)
Image: Lidiane Volpi/UFSCar (use of image authorized)
During the 2019 United Nations General Assembly, the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) was proclaimed, highlighting the urgency of formulating public policies aimed at recognizing, valuing, and preserving indigenous languages at a global level. In Brazil, this international guideline led to the creation of a national Working Group (WG) on the subject in 2021.
On April 10, 2025, representatives of indigenous peoples and members of this WG met in the Multi Themes Tent, during the meeting called “Raising Indigenous Languages for the Ancestral Future”, on which occasion the Carta da Década Internacional das Línguas Indígenas no Brasil no Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL) 20251 was written, a document that spells out the commitments made collectively in defense of linguistic diversity.
This movement is particularly important in Brazil, home to one of the greatest linguistic diversities in the world, with more than 270 indigenous languages still alive, spoken by around 305 different peoples. Despite this wealth, indigenous languages are still heavily impacted by the symbolic and structural effects of colonialism, which compromises their public visibility and their epistemological and institutional legitimacy.
Although the 1988 Federal Constitution (Art. 231) recognizes the linguistic rights of indigenous peoples, concrete progress in this area has historically been slow and punctual. Only in recent years have more systematic actions begun to emerge, such as the creation of the Brazilian Repository of Linguistic Legislation (Repositório Brasileiro de Legislações Linguísticas, RBLL) and the translation of the Federal Constitution into Nheengatu, one of the co-official languages already recognized at local level. Even so, less than a dozen of Brazil’s more than five thousand municipalities officially recognize an indigenous language as co-official.
Another recent advance is the right to register indigenous names, guaranteed by Joint Resolution nº 3/2012 of the National Council of Justice2 (Conselho Nacional de Justiça, CNJ) and the National Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Conselho Nacional do Ministério Púbico, CNMP), which authorizes registry offices to register names in indigenous languages, with the possibility of including the ethnicity of origin, both in birth records and in rectification processes. With the update by Resolution nº 12/2024,3 these possibilities have been expanded and simplified, ensuring greater respect for the identity and culture of indigenous peoples.
Given this context, it is essential that academic systems also incorporate these advances, ensuring that indigenous researchers are recognized by their original names and that their scientific outputs can be represented using the languages and cosmologies of their respective peoples.
The applied and experimental research presented here, carried out at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), aims to create and implement specific metadata fields in the University’s Institutional Repository. The initiative aims to ensure that indigenous scientific output, which is clearly growing in Brazilian higher education, is represented faithfully, respecting its own modes of authorship, expression and enunciation.
The proposal is in line with the CARE Principles4 (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics), which guide Indigenous Data Governance, as established by the Global Indigenous Data Alliance. These principles seek to promote data management practices that are more ethical, responsible and sensitive to the specificities of indigenous communities.
As a result of the research, a specific field was created to indicate the ethnicity or people to which the indigenous student authors belong. Moreover, the other fields in the Repository were updated with guidelines that make it possible to insert metadata in indigenous languages. In the authorship field, the possibility of including multiple indigenous authors has also been reinforced, respecting collective co-authorship and their own ways of producing knowledge.
The inclusion and adjustment of the fields was initially tested on an experimental basis, proving to be technically feasible and relevant to increasing the visibility and recognition of indigenous languages and authorship in the scientific ecosystem. Once the testing phase is over, the new metadata is being effectively incorporated into the Repository in 2025, consolidating it as a mechanism for recording indigenous scientific output.
It is important to note that this construction is the result of a demand from UFSCar’s own indigenous academic community. Since 2008, UFSCar has held an annual selection process specifically for indigenous students, offering an additional place on each undergraduate course. The admission of these students into the University is part of the affirmative actions instituted by UFSCar, as decided by the University Council (Conselho Universitário) in 2007, and is regulated by Ordinance GR nº 695/07,5 of June 6, 2007.
Since then, indigenous students from more than 60 different ethnic groups have attended UFSCar’s various undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In 2023, the University registered a record number of applications for this admission exam (3,480 candidates for 130 vacancies) and currently has around 300 indigenous students actively enrolled in undergraduate courses, distributed across different courses and campuses.
It is also worth noting that the Affirmative Action Policy in Postgraduate Studies—UFSCar, implemented in 2016 and 2020 respectively, has contributed significantly to the indigenous presence at this level of training. These figures reflect the progress of public policies to democratize higher education and science in Brazil, driven by milestones such as Law nº 12 711/2012 and specific institutional actions for access and permanence.
The growth in indigenous scientific production is therefore a direct result of the processes of inclusion and ethnic-racial affirmation in higher education. This scenario requires academic information systems to take a proactive stance in formulating appropriate strategies for the representation, archiving and dissemination of these productions. This is an essential step for the scientific field to recognize and value not only indigenous intellectual contributions, but also their own ways of naming, narrating, and constructing knowledge.
The following are the extensions made to the metadata of the UFSCar Institutional Repository.
| Dublin Core Field | Field Name | Field Description |
| dc.contributor.authorethnicity | Ethnicity/People of the author
(inclusion of the field) |
Where applicable, state the ethnicity/people of the author (without abbreviations). Only use capital letters at the beginning of words. For example: “Xukurú do Ororubá“. You can include more than one ethnicity/people. To do this, click on the “+ Add more” button. |
| dc.contributor.author | Author
(adequacy of the description for filling in the field) |
Enter the author’s full name (without abbreviations). Only use capital letters for initials and surnames. In the case of a social or indigenous name, use the name as it appears in the UFSCar Systems. You can add more than one author by clicking on the “+ Add more” button. |
| dc.description.abstract | Abstract in another language
(adequacy of the description for filling in the field) |
Enter the abstract of academic work in another language. You can include more than one abstract in another language. If you entered the abstract in Portuguese in the previous field, enter the abstract in English, Spanish, indigenous language, etc. in this field. To do this, click on the “+ Add more” button. |
| dc.subject | Keywords
(adequacy of the description for filling in the field) |
Enter keywords in Portuguese and other languages. Only use capital letters at the beginning of words and in acronyms. To add a new keyword, click on the “+ Add more” button. |
| dc.title.alternative | Title in another language
(adequacy of the description for filling in the field) |
Enter the title and subtitle in another language. If you entered the title in Portuguese in the previous field, enter the title in English, Spanish, indigenous language, etc. in this field. You can include more than one title in another language by clicking on the “+ Add more” button. |
Source: The authors.
Chart 1. Creation and description of fields to represent the indigenous language in the scientific output of indigenous authors.
In the Repository’s interface, the summary in the indigenous language is presented as follows.
Image: RI UFSCar
Figure 1. Example of an interface for registering abstracts and keywords in indigenous languages in the UFSCar Institutional Repository.
On the full item page, you can also see the inclusion of keywords and the title in indigenous language.
Image: RI UFSCar
Figure 2. Metadata in the indigenous language on the full item page at UFSCar Institutional Repository.
Currently, the Department of Scientific Output of the Integrated Library System (DePC/SIBi) at UFSCar has developed initiatives aimed at guiding the academic community on the proper deposit of scientific output by indigenous students and researchers.
This initiative reaffirms the urgency of recognizing the original languages and ethnicities of indigenous authorship as central dimensions in the representation of original scientific knowledge. More than informational categories, these are living expressions of knowledge, territories and existences that need to be made fully visible, legitimized and respected in academic systems. It is through this valorization that science can truly become plural, inclusive, and committed to epistemic justice.
More information about this activity can be found in the full paper:
PERIOTTO, C., et al. Organization and Representation of Indigenous Scientific Production: A Case Study on the Institutional Repository in Brazil. Knowledge Organization [online]. 2025, vol. 51, no. 8, pp. 642 – 659 [viewed 6 June 2025]. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2024-8-642. Available from: https://www.imrpress.com/journal/KO/51/8/10.5771/0943-7444-2024-8-642
Notes
1. Carta Aberta GT Nacional das Línguas Indígenas no ATL 2025 [online]. Década das Línguas Indígenas no Brasil. 2025 [viewed 6 June 2025]. Available from: https://www.decadalinguasindigenasbr.com/carta-da-decada-internacional-das-linguas-indigenas-no-brasil-no-atl-2025/ ↩
2. Resolução conjunta no 3, de 19 de abril de 2012 ↩
3. Resolução conjunta nº 12 de 13 de dezembro de 2024 ↩
4. CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance ↩
5. Legislação Institucional — Programa de Ações Afirmativas da UFSCar ↩
References
Carta Aberta GT Nacional das Línguas Indígenas no ATL 2025 [online]. Década das Línguas Indígenas no Brasil. 2025 [viewed 6 June 2025]. Available from: https://www.decadalinguasindigenasbr.com/carta-da-decada-internacional-das-linguas-indigenas-no-brasil-no-atl-2025/
Considerações e sugestões relativas a portaria no. 13 do MEC que dispõe sobre indução de ações afirmativas na pós-graduação [online]. Universidade Federal de São Carlos. 2016 [viewed 6 June 2025]. Available from: https://www.saade.ufscar.br/arquivos/minuta-2016-inducao-acoes-afirmativas-na-pos-graduacao.pdf
PERIOTTO, C., et al. Organization and Representation of Indigenous Scientific Production: A Case Study on the Institutional Repository in Brazil. Knowledge Organization [online]. 2025, vol. 51, no. 8, pp. 642 – 659 [viewed 6 June 2025]. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2024-8-642. Available from: https://www.imrpress.com/journal/KO/51/8/10.5771/0943-7444-2024-8-642
Política de ações Afirmativas na Pós-Graduação [online]. Universidade Federal de São Carlos. 2020 [viewed 6 June 2025]. Available from: https://www.saade.ufscar.br/arquivos/politica-de-acoes-afirmativas-pos-graduacao.pdf
External links
CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance
Legislação Institucional — Programa de Ações Afirmativas da UFSCar
Repositório Brasileiro de Legislações Linguísticas (RBLL)
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