Repositioning Ethnomathematics in European Context as a Matter of Social Justice

Abstract

The aim of this theoretical article is to, on the one hand, highlight the need for rethinking about EM—considering it as a dynamic field of knowledge and action, and taking into consideration the context in which EM has emerged and developed in counterpoint with current global conditions. On the other hand, this article demonstrates the importance of an EM perspective within the European context; this requires a shift from the experience of colonialism, within which Europe had the central and formative role, toward the more recent phenomenon of coloniality, that is, with the structures, epistemologies, and power relations that maintain societal and cultural hierarchies, in particular, those institutional and social structures that constitute and inform education and mathematics education. Europe, identified as a totality with the exercise of power, has made the recognition of asymmetric power relations within its own geographic boundaries less explicit; this situation has also hampered the development of EM in the European context. The identification within Europe of the Symbolic South (Santos, 2015), and the associated forms of epistemicide of (mathematics) knowledge that comes from out-of-mainstream (marginalized) populations within Europe, for example Roma mathematical practices, activated together the efforts reflected in this article. Methods of ethnomathematics, informed by the analysis of the Symbolic South present in European communities and ongoing structures of coloniality that create epistemicide, can respond to issues of inequity and social justice. ME in the European context and in dialogue with non-structural theories can also broaden the typical EM perspective and methods.