Mathematical Literacy in Feminist Indigenous Knowledges: A Qualitative Study of Women's Practices in Soweto, South Africa
Keywords:
Mathematical Literacy; Feminist Indigenous Knowledge; Indigenous Measurement Systems; Ethnomathematics; Indigenous women; Decolonial Education; South Africa.Abstract
This study is grounded in ethnomathematics, which examines how mathematical ideas emerge from cultural practices and knowledge systems. Using this lens, the study explores the intersection of mathematical literacy and feminist indigenous knowledges among women in South Africa, focusing on how mathematical reasoning is embedded in cultural, environmental, spiritual, and economic practices. Drawing from oral histories and narratives of indigenous healers, farmers, and traders, the study highlights how counting, measuring. Sequencing and estimation are sustained outside formal education systems. The study employed a qualitative and narrative-based design rooted in indigenous feminist methodologies, emphasising relationships, storytelling, and lived experiences. This method ensures diverse opinions and experiences regarding mathematical literacy and feminist indigenous knowledge. The study population consisted of all South African indigenous women. Indigenous women in Soweto, a community with a long-lasting background of indigenous practices, mostly those actively involved in communal farming, trading, and traditional healing, form the sample for the study. Six women above fifty years participated in the study, who were functionally illiterate, and four had a basic education. Findings reveal that indigenous women apply complex mathematical reasoning through embodied activities such as cooking, healing, farming, trading, and organizing community rituals. Practices include using moon cycles for planting, hand and calabash measurements in food preparation, rhythmic dance patterning, and mental arithmetic in market transactions and saving groups. These practices reflect advanced understandings of ratio, volume, time, and spatial logic forms of mathematical literacy passed down through generations. Participants expressed concern that formal education systems, grounded in Eurocentric epistemologies, marginalise indigenous knowledge and undermine intergenerational transmission.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.24.10.16
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