Ethnomathematics as a Pedagogical and Political Tool in an Indigenous School Curriculum

This chapter discusses how a teaching and research experience sheds light on epistemological, political, ethics, and diversity issues in Indigenous education and ethnomathematics to create Indigenous school curricula. It investigates what Xakriabá Indigenous teachers mean by ethnomathematics and how they use it in their schools’ curricula. We adopt a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, seeking to bring together both Indigenous and Western-European ways of knowing. The empirical material is selected among educational practices developed by Xakriabá teachers, alumni, and undergrads from FIEI (Intercultural Education for Indigenous Teachers) offered by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, establishing connections between ethnomathematics and their traditional practices. The analysis focuses on educational practices based on Western-European and Xakriabá Indigenous knowledge. We start from an ethnomathematics perspective (Knijnik G, Educação matemática, culturas e conhecimento na luta pela terra [Mathematics education, cultures and knowledge in the struggle for land]. Edunisc, 2012), which articulates Western theoretical notions on a variety of uses, functions, and language roles. From Xakriabá eyes, ethnomathematics is related to Xakriabá traditional mathematics, rooted in the ways of knowing and understanding the world around them. When including the subject “mathematics and ethnomathematics” in their curriculum, the Xakriabá teachers connect their school practices with cosmological and sociopolitical organization and assume the curriculum management in the school.