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Women Art and Geometry in Southern Africa By Paulus Gerdes

PDF Download Women Art and Geometry in Southern Africa By Paulus Gerdes

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Sales Rank: #2150834 in Books
Published on: 1998-02
Original language: English
Number of items: 1
Dimensions: 9.25" h x 6.25" w x .75" l, .85 pounds
Binding: Paperback
244 pages

From the Back Cover
Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa received "Special Commendation" in the 1996 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. The book was praised by the jury for "combining in an indigenous way the study of geometry with that of the visual arts, presenting an important challenge and stimulant to the future of mathematics in relation to gender and race, and erases the borders between mathematics and popular culture as experienced in the work and crafts of women in South Africa. The book's importance lies in its prospective impact on the education of African women in mathematics."

Africa needs to awaken and nurture its magnificent creative potential. African women, constituting half of the population, are strongly under-represented in scientific and technological careers where mathematics plays an important role. Women themselves appear to lack the confidence to take up studies in the science fields that have been considered male domains in Europe and throughout colonial Africa. Ironically, however, outside this context, Southern African women have traditionally been involved in cultural activities - such as ceramics, beading, mural decoration, mat and basket weaving, hair braiding, tattooing, string figures - which bear a striking artistic and mathematical character.

The main objective of the book is to call attention to some mathematical ideas incorporated in the patterns invented by women of Southern Africa. An appreciation of these mathematical traditions may lead to their preservation, revival and development. Use of female art traditional forms has implications in the field of mathematics education.

About the Author
Paulus Gerdes, a Mozambican scientist, is a professor of mathematics at Mozambique's Universidade Pecdaogica, where he was rector of the University from 1989-1996. He was the 1986 chairman of Commission of History of Mathematics in Africa and from 1991 to 1995 was the Secretary of the Southem African Mathematical Sciences Association. He has published several other books on mathematics and mathematics education in Africa.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface - African peoples and countries in general, and those in Southern Africa entering the post-apartheid era in particular, are facing the urgent need to awaken and nurture their magnificent potential for the benefit of all.

Women, constituting half of the population, are still strongly under-represented in scientific and technological careers where mathematical ideas play an important role. For instance, only 2096 of the mathematicians and mathematics educators included in the "Who is Who in Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Southern Africa" (Gerdes ed., 1992, 1993) are women. Lydia Makhubu, chemist and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Swaziland, points out that in addition to other sociocultural obsta- cles, women themselves appear to lack the confidence to take up studies in the science fields that have - in the context of school tra- ditions transplanted from Europe to Africa - been considered male domains (cf. Makhubu, 1991, p. 143). Outside the context of the forcibly imported school, however, Southern African women have traditionally been involved in cultural activities - such as ceram- ics, beading, mural decoration, basket weaving, hair braiding, tattooing, string figures - which bear a strong artistic and mathematical character. Although the mathematical aspects of these traditional cultural activities have so far not, or hardly, been recognised by 'Academia', this does not render them less mathematical.

After all, what is mathematics all about?

The famous number theorist, Hardy, once wrote that "A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas." and "The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful. The ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics" (Hardy, 1940, p. 84, 85). Along the same lines go the remarks of the Cameroonean mathematician Njock: "Pure mathematics is the art of creating and imaginating. In this sense black art is mathematics" (Njock, 1985, p. 8). Southern African women have created and continue to create, invent, and imaginate beautiful patterns.

The main objective of the book Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa is to call attention to some mathematical aspects and ideas incorporated in the pat- terns invented by women in Southern Africa. It is our wish to contribute to the valuing, revival and development of traditions which may otherwise vanish. In an earlier book "Sipatsi: Technology, Art and Geometry in Inhambane" (1994) it was first explained which mathematical ideas are involved in the weaving of sipatsi handbags by Gitonga speaking women in the Mozambican province of Inhambane. Then a catalogue of strip patterns with which the basketweavers decorate their sipatsi was presented, followed by examples of an educational and mathematical exploration of these handbags. With the publication of Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa it is hoped to stimulate research all over the region, such as that which led to "Sipatsi: Technology, Art and Geometry in Inhambane": fieldwork, pattern gathering and analysis, and educational experimentation.

The suggestions presented in this book attempt to support the preparation of further initiatives which may contribute to a fuller realization of the mathematical potential of women (and men) in Southern Africa, and to - what Africa so urgently needs, in the words of the well- known historian Ki-Zerbo - a "new educational system, properly rooted in both society and environment, and therefore apt to generate the self-confidence from which imagination springs " (Ki-Zerbo, 1990, p.104). Several of the suggestions were briefly presented earlier at conferences and talks in Swaziland (University of Swaziland, Kwaluseni, 1992; Waterford College, Mbabane, 1993), Lesotho (SAMSA Symposium, Maseru, 1986; National University of Lesotho, 1980, 1995), Botswana (SAMSA Symposium, Gaborone, 1993), South Africa (AMESA-lectures in Durban, Cape 1bwn, Johannesburg, 1994).

Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa is dedicated to all the artists, artisans and geometers who create the fascinating worlds of sipatsi, titja, mafielo, oku-taleka, nembo, ovilame, litema, ikghuptu, ... Maputo, March 27, 1995

Paulus Gerdes Universidade Pedagogica C.P. g15, Maputo, Mozambique

The first edition of Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa was published in 1995 by Mozambique's 'Universidade Pedagogica'. In this new edition by Africa World Press, the book is extended with an appendix (an initial response to a challenge made in the first edition) written by Salimo Saide, one of my former students at the 'Universidade Pedagogica'. He presents extracts of interviews with some of the old and maybe last female potters from the Yao speaking population and descibes some geometrical aspects of their pottery decoration. The Yao live in Mozambique's northern Nyassa Province, that borders Lake Nyassa and Vanzania. I dedicate the new edition by Africa World Press to my youngest daughter Likilisa.

June 1998 Paulus Gerdes

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