Other views on mathematics

Can mathematical knowledge be an instrument of protection and shelter?

Abstract

In this paper, we will present an initial discussion, for the authors, that has emerged in our training spaces as markers of our experiences. A beginning of a debate that consists of the non-neutrality of Mathematics and, consequently, of Mathematics Education from a perspective that involves social issues, specifically racial issues. In this way, we bring to discuss the relationship of these areas as molds to which subaltern bodies are subjected in society. In what ways has Mathematics been used in the most diverse spaces? Can Mathematics offer a welcoming space for black women? And for the queer community? In what ways has Mathematics been used by subaltern bodies? Concerned with these demands, we present here a brief explanation, and a possible environment, for discussions on how subalternized bodies have relied on mathematics to occupy different spaces and thus escape the oppressions and inequalities that surround them. In this article, we want to present an initial demand of ours, as a way of questioning the place of Mathematics and Mathematics Education beyond the discourses and metanarratives that are propagated in these areas, which, because they are so often narrated, become the only version when we talk about Mathematics. So that our demands, full of anguish, can give rise to other problems in the most diverse subjects.