Forces in Translation - Basketry: Maths: Anthropology
Working at the interface between basketry, mathematics and anthropology to explore how the bodily skills of basket-weaving may enliven the learning of topology and geometry.
Project summary
Research summary
- November 2019 to November 2021
Forces in Translation is an interdisciplinary project drawing on basketry, anthropology and mathematics.
The project aims to discover continuities between craft/art and mathematical practices, which can open learning contexts for their mutual enrichment.
Crafting engages practitioners with materials and techniques that lend naturally to questions about what is possible to produce with them and might necessarily result from them. Questions about what is possible and necessary are the roots of mathematics.
New ways of learning
The project hopes to inspire new avenues for learning within informal mathematics education. This encompasses a wide range of activities and institutional settings including:
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museums
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after school programmes
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summer camps
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street fairs
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community centres
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art festivals
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craft apprenticeships
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sport facilities
Learning in informal settings is mostly non-compulsory and free of standardised testing, which means that is unconstrained by curricular mandates and related in open ways to the work of experts in different fields.
The project will continue to host online practical mathematical basketry events throughout 2021.
Forces in Translation website
Keep up to date with news, events and resources from the Forces in Translation project.Research outputs
Academic papers
- Bunn, S. J. (forthcoming) ‘Weaving and flying: Fusion, friction and flow in collaborative research.’ Journal of Arts and Community, Special edition: Stitching Together.
- Nemirovsky, R. (2021) ‘On the Continuities Between Craft and Mathematical Practices.’ In S. Bunn & V. Mitchell (Eds.), The Material Culture of Basketry (pp. 57-63). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Nemirovsky, R. (forthcoming) ‘Bodies, Incorporeals, and the Birth of a Mathematical Diagram.’ In L. D. Edwards & C. M. Krause (Eds.), The body in mathematics: Theoretical and methodological lenses: Springer.
- Nemirovsky, R., Ferrari, G., Rasmussen, C., & Voigt, M. (2020) ‘Conversations with Materials and Diagrams About Some of the Intricacies of Oscillatory Motion.’ Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education.
Research team
research team
Lead researchers
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Stephanie Bunn, from the University of St Andrews
PhD students
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Tom Dibley
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Charlotte Megroureche
Basket weavers
- Hilary Burns
- Mary Crabb
- Geraldine Jones
Funding
With funding from
This project is funded by an APEX (Academies Partnership in Supporting Excellence in Cross-disciplinary research) grant. Other labs and studios can be found at the University of St Andrews and in Copenhagen.
The British Academy
Royal Academy of Engineering
Leverhulme Trust
Contact
Contact us
For general enquiries about this project or the Education and Social Research Institute’s mathematics education group, you can contact research group lead Professor Ricardo Nemirovsky.