TY - CHAP
T1 - The tapestry of mathematics- Connecting threads
T2 - A case study incorporating ecologies, languages and mathematical systems of Papua New Guinea
AU - Owens, Kay
N1 - Kay Owens has been researching with Papua New Guinea colleagues in Papua New Guinea for 50 years and has an extensive list of references on these topics.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
PY - 2023/2/15
Y1 - 2023/2/15
N2 - Tapestries interweave strands and colours to create beauty. Mathematics is created through time and place to provide beautiful systems of patterns and purposes. One such place of diverse ecologies and languages that spans thousands of years of intact cultures is Papua New Guinea (PNG). Its diversity of places and peoples with ancient cultures has created a mathematical tapestry. This chapter expands on a small section of this tapestry to challenge most Indo-European views of the beginnings of mathematics such as number systems and mathematical reasoning. Archaeological linguistics, local environments and ecology, sociology of economics, sociopolitical expectations, and mathematical ways of reasoning form threads to create sections of the tapestry. These pieces provide examples of ethnomathematics valuing Indigenous knowledges as mathematical and as important for all societies both within PNG and around the world. Alternative ways of understanding mathematics assist in creating new pieces of the tapestry of mathematics.
AB - Tapestries interweave strands and colours to create beauty. Mathematics is created through time and place to provide beautiful systems of patterns and purposes. One such place of diverse ecologies and languages that spans thousands of years of intact cultures is Papua New Guinea (PNG). Its diversity of places and peoples with ancient cultures has created a mathematical tapestry. This chapter expands on a small section of this tapestry to challenge most Indo-European views of the beginnings of mathematics such as number systems and mathematical reasoning. Archaeological linguistics, local environments and ecology, sociology of economics, sociopolitical expectations, and mathematical ways of reasoning form threads to create sections of the tapestry. These pieces provide examples of ethnomathematics valuing Indigenous knowledges as mathematical and as important for all societies both within PNG and around the world. Alternative ways of understanding mathematics assist in creating new pieces of the tapestry of mathematics.
KW - Papua New Guinea
KW - Mathematics and languages
KW - Kula trade and art
KW - Time, place and economy
KW - ethnomathematics
KW - Classifications in mathematics
KW - Counting systems
KW - Ethnomathematics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85159132285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85159132285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-97482-4
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-97482-4_7
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-97482-4_7
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9783030974817
SP - 183
EP - 220
BT - Indigenous knowledge and ethnomathematics
A2 - Vandendriessche, Eric
A2 - Pinxten, Rik
PB - Springer
CY - Cham, Switzerland
ER -
