MARIA PAULA MENESES is a Principal researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Her research focus on the political history and socio-legal complexity of Southern Africa, especially in Mozambique, Angola and South Africa. A Mozambican scholar, she attended secondary school in Maputo, and later on did her graduate studies in Russia (MA in History from St. Petersburg University) and obtained her PhD in Anthropology by Rutgers University, USA. Previously she was a Professor at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. In 2019 she was a visiting scholar at EHSS, Paris. At the CES Maria Paula Meneses develops several research projects and teaches in two PhD programs, namely Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship and Human Rights in the 21st th century. She has oriented various PhD students, both in Coimbra and internationally. Maria Paula Meneses also co-coordinates, with Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Karina Bidaseca, CES-CLACSO e-learning specialization course on Epistemologies of the South. At the heart of her research interests are the relations between knowledge, power and societies, paying special attention to people who experienced the violence of the colonial encounter in Africa. She has conducted various projects focusing on the relationship between official history, memory(ies) and other narratives of belonging in contemporary identity struggles. Another of the topics in which she has been working focuses on the possibilities of decolonization of the university, a topic that she has addressed particularly from her African experience. Her work has been published in journals, books and reports in several countries, including Mozambique, Spain, Portugal, Senegal, USA, England, Germany, Colombia, amid others. Recent publications include "Os Saberes Feiticeiros em Moçambique: Realidades materiais, experiências espirituais" [Wizarding Knowledge in Mozambique: Material realities, spiritual experiences](Almedina 2019), the co-edition, with Boaventura de Sousa Santos, of "Knowledges Born in the Struggle. Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South" (Routledge, 2019; Akal, 2020), and "Mozambique on the Move. Challenges and Reflections" (Brill, 2018), co-organized with Sheila Khan and Bjorn Bertelsen.