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A British academic "rolling eyes" at efforts to decolonise their material. Yikes but also typical. Mathematics is a pure subject, and logic itself is not coloni

A British academic "rolling eyes" at efforts to decolonise their material. Yikes but also typical. Mathematics is a pure subject, and logic itself is not colonial. Of course. But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. It's not a wild idea to take a moment and consider how your department may be complicit.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
Can you clearly and lucidy explain how mathematics might be "colonial"?
- Fomite 4y ago
  From an application context, "Weapons of Math Destruction" is a good place to start.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Okay, but that's not relevant to mathematics. That's about business decisions.
    - Fomite 4y ago
      Aided and abetted by putting a veneer of mathematics over the top. That is the important context for the idea of decolonizing math - that it doesn't actually take place in a vacuum.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
> academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching In mathematics? How do they do that?
kennend3 4y ago
> But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. So my ex-wife is Chinese and not to play into the stereotype but math is important to the Chinese. When she was growing up in China, learning Math, what aspect of this was "colonialism"? Now when our kids went to math class in Canada and the instructor was also Chinese, were they teaching "colonialism" as well as math?