One Last Circle
Abstract
This article provides insights and thoughts on next steps that arose from research on a multi-year NSF-funded project, Mathematics and Culture In Micronesia: Integrating Societal Experiences (MACIMISE). The ideas come from my dissertation study, which tracked the difficulties, challenges, struggles, and successes of Project MACIMISE participants. Students in the MACIMISE graduate program were from ten participating Pacific islands and island groups (Hawai`i, Pohnpei, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, American Samoa, Kosrae, Chuuk, Guam, Saipan, Yap, and Palau). Informed by participant reports on new understandings about how their island cultures mathematized their world, a sense of urgency about documenting what is left of their cultures' indigenous knowledge before it disappears, and the conflicts and violations they negotiated while trying to embed indigenous mathematical knowledge and practices within primarily Western-modeled educational settings, I report here on my exploration of the concept of ethnomathematics, particularly on its nature and utility.