African-Based Cultural Practices and Mathematical Practices: Decolonizing Knowledge

Abstract

To think of mathematics in African-based cultural practices in Brazil is not necessarily to think about them. In other words, if we understand the Africanities in the way, proposed by Lima and Trindade (2009), as a Brazilian cultural background acquired through African ancestral memories, we should not recognize mathematics, which historically claims to itself a privileged place of universality, in these African-based traditional practices. In this chapter we intend to discuss crossings between knowledge and traditional practices originating in Africa, in order to problematize a colonial thinking rooted in modernity/coloniality, when we identify attempts to recognize mathematics in these practices. In this sense, we would like to discuss the contribution of a decolonial thinking movement to Ethnomathematics field, supported by a perspective that intends to approach these practices from other epistemic views. To conduct this essay, we bring examples from two African-based practices. One from a quilombola community called Mussuca, located in Sergipe State, and another related to narratives in candomble ritual in Brazil. Then we try to go through (ethno) mathematics studies with African-based practices and finally we raise issues around how a decolonial thinking can cause displacement to think knowledge in these practices.