Estilhaçando as máscaras epistemológicas das Anastácias da atualidade: compreendendo os impactos das produções de mulheres africanas para a Matemática no século XX e XXI

Abstract

The field of mathematics is a white male designated environment. Undoubtedly, in recent years, there has been a small growth in the scientific production of women in mathematics, particularly of black researchers in Africa and the diaspora. Nevertheless, the invisibility of these productions and contributions in Brazilian academic circles has been perpetuated by colonialism, which made ubiquity its main characteristic and rhetoric its main path, going through a metamorphosis with the design of re-signification, going through an adaptation to current times. . In this context, the present research focuses on presenting, investigating, discussing these productions and contributions. More generally, we will investigate how the productions of African women for mathematics in the 20th and 21st centuries collaborate with the deconstruction of Eurocentric metanarratives. In this way, the cosmoperception chosen is called Afrocentricity, which, methodologically associated with African historiography, will guide the dissertation. Due to the enormous amount of scientific production, it would be impracticable, for a master's project, to analyze all of them, so a cut was necessary. Thus, we chose to investigate the contributions of some members - all members are women - of the African Women In Mathematics Association (AWMA). The anticipation was due to two criteria: cultural diversities of the members, as they are spread throughout the African continent; the existence of a document on the association's website containing a written interview given by several members commenting on their family, career, research area, projects, education, dreams, challenges, among other information. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first presents the scope of the research. The second will bring an African historiographical summary from an endogenous perspective, deconstructing the Eurocentric version imposed since the 16th century, showing that the African continent is the cradle of civilization, advancing to the 20th and 21st centuries, which is the period delimited in the research, preparing the stage for our stars. Next, we will discuss issues related to women on the African continent, such as: Matrilinearity, feminisms, access and permanence in the educational system, the development of research in the areas of science in Africa. The last chapter brings an analysis of these contributions in the light of the minimum characteristics, used in any Afrocentric project, pointed out by Molefi Kete Asante, namely: interest in psychological location; commitment to discovering the place of the African as a subject; defense of African cultural elements; commitment to lexical refinement; commitment to a new narrative of African history