Paper short abstract:

I shall critically interrogate the trope that "mathematics is everywhere" and consider alternative models for public and practitioner understanding of mathematics derived from social studies of the locations of (and processes of relocating) mathematical knowledge and practice.

Paper long abstract:

The trope that “mathematics is everywhere” has been a pervasive component of both public and practitioner discourses about mathematics, its role in the world, and its claims to sociopolitical and scholarly importance. When UNESCO launched the annual International Day of Mathematics “worldwide celebration” on 14 March, 2020, “mathematics is everywhere” was chosen as the inaugural theme. A contemporary legacy of a centuries-long history of mathematization of the sociomaterial world, this trope and companion discourses (for instance the idea of “hidden mathematics” in commonplace objects and experiences) have misleadingly naturalized mathematical theories and applications while counterproductively distracting from place-based accounts of the production and mobilization of mathematical meaning. I shall offer a critical interrogation of the genealogy and effects of the “mathematics is everywhere” trope and examine how a critical study of the location of mathematical knowledge and practice provides not just a more sociologically and historically appropriate account of mathematics but also a better foundation for public and practitioner understanding of the discipline, capable of speaking to the role of mathematics in the production of social inequality and of social inequality in the production of mathematics. My account draws especially from my research on the history of globalization of mathematics, and of the persistence of place and particularity in the negotiation of putatively universal mathematical knowledges and practices.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on topology to engage perspective as a question of anthropological method, I explore the elicitation of context as an interpretive device in ethnography as relational objectification of "embedding", looking specifically at self-intersection as a marker of infelicitous embedding.

Paper long abstract:

Topology is widely used in the social sciences to metaphorically render complex relationalities of individuation and transformation. Cases often involve the invocation of a phenomena which raise specific questions of their continuity over space, time, and experience, and the most direct uses of topology often invoke varied geneaological references to ideas of structure. However, these projections of "topological" qualities often carry with them an affect and analytic of excess - of absolute fluidity, of the absence of fixity, of the arbitrariness of connection. The poetic force such excesses paradoxically elicit raises interesting questions concerning the use of topology as an infrastructure of description, in that it often entails the improper description of model "topological" phenomena. What appear as properties of a properly "topological" object, such as the Möbius strip, often arise from the visualisation of their embedding, or a perspectival interaction between the dimensional properties of a surface and the dimensional properties of the space in which it is rendered, where the object appears as an artefact having given properties in a neutral context. In this paper, I will address the possible implications of taking the elicitation of context as interpretive device in ethnography as a relational objectification of embedding, looking specifically at the relation of self-intersection as marking an infelicitous embedding. In this way, I hope to provide a reflection on the political economies of commensuration that give rise to the intelligibility of perspective as a question of anthropological method.

Paper short abstract:

Premised on the idea that learning occurs through shifts in participation in a community of practice, this collaborative data session will use third-world feminist methods to illuminate the material conditions, social relationships, and embodied practices out of which mathematical knowledge emerges.

Paper long abstract:

The goal of this session is to explore the social collaborative nature of mathematical work through a critical examination of the interactions between two professional mathematicians engaged in an afternoon of reading, writing, and mathematical problem solving. Drawing on Goodwin’s (2003) conceptualization of the semiotic body in its environment, my broader work is interested in offering an account of mathematics as an embodied practice that is accomplished through social interaction, the recruitment of tools, the creation of artifacts, and a coordinated assemblage of these tools, artifacts, and actors. Focusing on excerpts of interactions and events from an afternoon spent around the kitchen table with mathematicians Natalie and Usman, in this session we will unsettle normative understandings of mathematics as a non-material, abstract practice, instead making an intersectional queer feminist case for the embodied, concrete, social-relational nature of mathematical knowledge production.

The session being proposed will be run as a data-workshopping session using the methods of collaborative critical Interaction Analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). Together, participants will look at excerpts of video data of the two focal mathematicians working together to develop a mathematical concept for a paper they are writing. We will draw on postcolonial feminist perspectives (Ahmed, 2006) to make sense of how mathematical work unfolds, with the specific goal of understanding knowledge production in mathematics as a result of social-interactional, embodied, and emplaced negotiations.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, you are welcome to take a look at the poster which will give you a general tour of the development and transformation of the public engagement of mathematics in China.

Paper long abstract:

The development of public engagement of mathematics in China has seen lots of vicissitudes. Historically, it evolved from the ancient Chinese mathematics, to the modern western mathematics. The main areas it focused went from politics, agriculture, to industries, economy, and culture. The forms of mathematical engagement are mostly books, lectures, but some are interactive games, competition awards, and few are exhibitions or event venues. In terms of content, introductions to mathematical knowledge, methods, and education views used to be the mainstream, which were relatively simple and narrow, for a single group, mostly teenagers and professionals. Moreover, in this era of fast-paced life, most people like short, entertainment videos, which makes it more difficult for people to calm down and learn mathematics, harder to appreciate the fun in mathematics. However, some work occurred a decade ago including histories and cultures of mathematics, mathematician biographies, and international views, which have re-energised the public engagement of mathematics in China. In this presentation, you are welcome to take a look at the poster which will give you a general tour of the development and transformation of the public engagement of mathematics in China. By discussing relevant topics with the presenter, you may exchange ideas of how to make math more popular to the public.

Paper short abstract:

Materiality is an important framework for understanding how knowledge is produced through interactions between mathematicians and their tools and contexts. I use preliminary archival research on Benoit Mandelbrot to consider the political implications of focusing on different forms of materiality.

Paper long abstract:

Scholars of both mathematics and STS more broadly have brought attention to the material aspects of knowledge production in the sciences. Materiality is an important framework for understanding how mathematical knowledge is produced through interactions between mathematicians and their tools and contexts. Such understandings are a productive step toward recognizing, and, crucially, undoing, connections between mathematics and political violence. In this contribution, I investigate the political commitments and calls to action that come from attending to different materialities. Using preliminary archival research on Benoit Mandelbrot, IBM fellow and “father” of fractal geometry,” I focus on the material aspects of fractal research – the visualization of fractals, the computing resources at IBM, and the ties to extraction industries. With these examples, I ask how we, as scholars, should approach the study of materialities that are more or less explicitly political. What are the stakes, for example, of focusing on the ties between Mandelbrot and weapons manufacturers, or between Mandelbrot and institutions central to the Israeli apartheid regime like the Technion? What about less explicitly political materialities such as fractal visualizations? This methodological question attends to what directions of study are the most fruitful on a scholarly level, but, more importantly, it asks what connections and relationships are most fruitful for enacting calls to action. Through a few examples, I suggest that to only focus on the most explicitly political aspects is a disservice that makes the work of organizers aiming to disrupt mathematical systems of violence and harm more challenging.