Ethnomathematics

Characterizing Ethnomathematics

There are activities in all cultures in which mathematics is embedded, going far beyond mathematics as an academic discipline. Alan Bishop highlighted six—counting, locating, measuring, playing, designing, and explaining. Such activities relate to human existence, whether practical (e.g., navigation, finding food), social (e.g., kinship structures), or transcendent of practical needs (e.g., aesthetics, cosmology). Here are some examples:

Counting practices and tools, both physical and mental, have existed across millennia in great variety, as described by scholars such as Marcia Ascher and Claudia Zaslavsky. Another fascinating example of a complex counting system was the use of knotted strings, called khipus/quipus in Quechua/Spanish, for record keeping, which was developed by the Inkas. Knowledge of this system is largely due to the painstaking work of Gary Urton.

Locating is exemplified by the highly sophisticated navigational techniques of peoples in all environments, a notable case being navigation of the Pacific Islanders. A further example is Rik Pinxten's study of how the Navajo orient, embedded in their conception of space.

Measuring length throughout history has been based on using parts of the body, as exemplified in Yup'ik everyday practices, studied for many years by Jerry Lipka and his team in Fairbanks, Alaska. Gelsa Knijnik has also intensively analyzed cultural practices involving measurement in the context of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement.

Playing complex games found in multiple cultures involves many kinds of mathematical reasoning, particularly the weighing of probabilities and strategical thinking, and has been studied by the mathematician Marcia Ascher. A wide variety of multicultural mathematical games and puzzles that enhance curricula have been compiled by Claudia Zaslavsky, whose pioneering book Africa Counts is a classic example.

Designing reflects the decorative impulse that all humans share. The aesthetic enhancement of artifacts with geometrical analysis has been extensively documented, an outstanding example being the work of Paulus Gerdes on basketry and other artifacts in Mozambique.

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