Subverting epistemicide through 'the commons': Mathematics as re/making space and time for learning

Abstract

The present study considers mathematics as a matter for re/making space and time for learning in the context of a pedagogic workshop for the commons where the subversion of epistemicide becomes core. The workshop is rooted in an ecology of knowledges, histories and feelings where earth caring, artefact making and affective bodying become central in the rural village scape located in northern Greece at the southeast of Europe. The pedagogic workshop is organized by a group of people in their 30s who, instead of immigrating to the 'West' for a secure job, have opted to return to their place of origin striving for 'the commons' in their physical and cultural environment. Based on a meta-analysis of reading ethnographic data we denote: first, signs of epistemicide where erasures around local knowledge(s) with land and people make children feel insecure or intimidated; second, evidence of articulating a radical pedagogy for the commons that contributes towards subverting epistemicide through re/making space and time; and third, partial manifestations of mathematical hybridity in knowledge making practices.