Ethnomathematics: Legitimizing the link between Mathematics and Culture

1. Ethnomathematics: Legitimizing the link between Mathematics and Culture Swapna Mukhopadhyay Graduate School of Education Portland State University swapna@pdx.edu Oregon NAME Conference Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.

2. Swapna Mukhopadhyay SHOPNA MUKHO-PADTHAI

3. Kolam

6. Lusona (Sona, plural)

8. Shipibo

11. Tlingit, Alaska

13. Alaska Native Languages Tlingit map

14. August 24, 2006 Quilts by women ~ 1940- 2000. Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

18. “ No people… however hard their lives may be, spend all their time, all their energies in the acquisition of food and shelter … Even the poorest tribes have produced work that gives them esthetic pleasure …[they] devote much of their energy to the creation of works of beauty…No matter how diverse the ideals may be, the general character of the enjoyment of beauty is of the same order everywhere.” Franz Boas (1927). Primitive Art. New York: Dover

19. What is Ethnomathematics? …the mathematics practiced among identifiable cultural groups, such as national-tribal societies, labor groups, children of certain age bracket, professional classes, and so on. Its identity depends largely on focuses of interest, on motivation, and on certain codes and jargons which do not belong to the realm of academic mathematics. D’Ambrosio, 1985

20. ethno + mathema + tics = ethnomathematics ethno - within a cultural environment mathema - explaining and understanding in order to transcend, managing and coping with reality in order to survive and thrive tics - techniques such as counting, ordering, sorting, measuring, weighing, ciphering, classifying, inferring, and modeling. D’Ambrosio, 2001.

21. Cultural history Ethnomathematics Mathematics Cultural anthropology

22. Connecting to the museum as a resource A field trip to the local museum. • Pre-museum activity • Semi-structured fieldwork • Post-museum activity • Curricular follow-up

23. Mathematics Cultural artifact Alternative forms of knowledge construction

24. In preparation… Translation Reflection

25. Reflection Rotation

26. Glide

27. Translation Reflection Rotation Glide

28. In a patterned weave, the pattern is generated by working one row at a time –like stacking layers of disembedded patterns in a row. Without a routinzed algorithm, the weaver relies heavily on her capacity of visualizing the entire pattern, breaking down each layer of it, keeping a counting sequence as well as the ability to visually predict the entire sequence of pattern and self-correct counting mistakes made.

31. A few comments “When making this kind of art, thinking about math is unavoidable. The project makes art and math synonymous.” “Do not teach an ethnocentric curriculum.” “And if nothing else, the museum can serve as a humbling experience”. “…striking interplay of art and function.” “ … amazing connection to the globalized world.” “Ethnomathematics encourages us to witness and struggle to understand how mathematics continues to be culturally adapted and used by people around the planet and throughout the time.” D’Ambrosio, 2001.

33. The intellectual activity of those without power is always characterized as non-intellectual. (Freire & Macedo, (1987), Literacy. Reading the word and the world, p. 188. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey)

34. Thank you Let’s stay in touch swapna@pdx.edu