Ethnomathematics and the Che-Guevara Rural Settlement: drives for survival and transcendence in the settler’s knowledge/practice

Abstract

This work refers to a research accomplish with a group of settlers from the Che-Guevara Settlement, situated of the county of Itaberái/GO. The objective was to analyze in social relations (transcendence drive) and productive (survival drive) the presupposed of ethnomathematics in the Che-Guevara settlement. It was mediated by the following questions: How the generation, organization (social and intellectual) and dissemination of knowledge, sometimes mathematized, imbued with sociocultural importance and essential for the permanence those settled in the region, can be observed/witnessed/understood? And from which social institutions, in which the settlers act actively by sharing knowledge and compatible behaviors that identify and characterize as a sociocultural group? To understand that in productive activities and social relations there is exchange of knowledge and practices (sometimes mathematician), asked in this research: What are the processes of generation, organization (social and intellectual) and diffusion from mathematical knowledge in cultural system of Che-Guevara settlement in Itaberaí/GO? Thereunto, we support in D’Ambrosio (2002), main Brazilian researcher on the Ethnomathematics Program and cultural system that constitutes of drive survival and transcendence, Bergamasco and Norder (1996), Medeiros and Leite (1999) about the formation of Brazilian rural settlements and social relations, Bertti (2002) and Araújo (2005) that indicate the settlements as formative institutions, besides Santana (2008) that describes the history of formation from Che-Guevara Settlement and the trajectory of settlers struggle. The methodology that structured the research was based on Ethnography: observations and interviews. By analyzing the interviews, we realize that the settlers do not recognize mathematical knowledge [...]