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The Montreal Inter-University Workshop on the History and Philosophy of Mathematics

"Sand-drawing in Vanuatu: A case in Ethnomathematics"

Alban Da Silva (Paris Cité)
Friday, November 25, 2022
3:30-5:00 PM 
Location: Leacock 927

Abstract: In the central islands of Vanuatu (former New Hebrides) exists a practice of drawing symmetrical figures on the ground, according to ‘rules’ that constrain the practice and that allow us to study its ‘mathematical dimension’. Based on a survey carried out between 2016 and 2019 on Pentecost Island within the Raga society, and a re-reading of the Marcia Ascher’s ethnomathematical work, I have developed a new mathematical model and IT-tools to highlight the operative and algorithmic nature of this practice. The ethnographic data led me to introduce several concepts—cycles in graphs, topological operations, algorithms—that seem to be at the very core of the processes of creation and memorization of these drawings. These modeling tools allow us to study the practice of sand-drawing among the Raga societies, not as an isolated fact, but as a revelation of their way of ‘experiencing and inhabiting the world’ as many anthropologists, like Philippe Descola, are now used to talk about ‘culture’. From Veblen’s theorem to the ontologies of the Raga, this talk will present a case of mathematical otherness that might be of interest to historians of mathematics as well as philosophers of mathematics and anthropologists.

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