Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web‐based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSDT project: negotiating the representations of cultural knowledge during the design process with community members, negotiating pedagogical features with math teachers and their students, and reflecting on the software development itself as a cultural construction. The move from ethnomathematics to ethnocomputing results in an expressive computational medium that affords new opportunities to explore the relationships between youth identity and culture, the cultural construction of mathematics and computing, and the formation of cultural and technological hybridity.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from finance to truck driving. But artisanal products-(e.g. handmade textiles) are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent "immunity" from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to democratize the economy, allowing independent, small scale businesses to flourish. Could AI, robotics and related automation technologies enhance the economic viability and environmental sustainability of these beloved crafting professions, perhaps even expanding their niche to replace some job loss in other sectors? In this paper we compare the problems created by the current mass production economy, and potential solutions from an artisanal economy. In doing so, the paper details the possibilities of utilizing AI to support hybrid forms of human-machine production at the microscale; localized and sustainable value chains at the meso-scale; and networks of these localized and sustainable producers at the macro scale. In short, a wide range of automation technologies are potentially available for facilitating and empowering an artisanal economy. Ultimately, it is our hope that this paper will facilitate a discussion on a future vision for more "generative" economic forms in which labor value, ecological value and social value can circulate without extraction or alienation.
In the United States, the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (also widely known as STEM) attract very few African American, Latino, and Native (indigenous Alaskan, North American, and Pacific Islander) students. These underrepresented students might be more attracted to STEM disciplines if they knew STEM education's extraordinary potential to circulate value back to their ethnic communities. For instance, underrepresented medical students, after graduation, are statistically more likely than white students to conduct research on health issues relevant to their ethnic communities. One of the most popular STEM reform movements that of STEAM (STEM + Arts) has done very little to help circulate the unalienated value of these ethnic communities. This paper describes "ethnocomputational creativity" as a generative framework for STEAM that circulates unalienated value in the arts back to underrepresented ethnic communities. We first will look at the dangers of extracting cultural capital without compensation, and how ethnocomputational creativity can, in contrast, help these communities to circulate value in its unalienated form, nurturing both traditional artistic practices as well as creating new paths for "heritage algorithms" and other forms of decolonized STEM education. KEYWORDSDesign agency; educational programs; ethnic communities; heritage algorithms; STEAM. RESUMENEn los Estados Unidos, las disciplinas de ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (conocidas como por el acrónimo STEM) atraen pocos estudiantes afro-americanos, latinos y nativos (de los pueblos indígenas de Alaska, Norteamérica y las islas del Pacífico). Estos estudiantes en minoría podrían sentirse más atraídos hacia las disciplinas STEM si supieran que tienen un extraordinario potencial para hacer "circular el valor de vuelta" a sus comunidades étnicas. Por ejemplo, los estudiantes de medicina de minorías étnicas son estadísticamente más propensos que los estudiantes blancos a realizar investigaciones relacionadas con los problemas de salud que afectan a sus comunidades. La reforma educativa más popular del programa STEM es lo que se conoce como STEAM (STEM + Arts), sin embargo, esta versión que incluye la disciplina Arts (arte y humanidades), ha hecho poco por devolver el valor no alienado a las comunidades étnicas en minoría. Este artículo describe la "creatividad etnocomputacional" como un marco teórico generativo para el desarrollo de un programa STEAM que favorezca esta recirculación del valor no alienado de vuelta a las comunidades étnicas. Primero nos centraremos en los peligros de extraer capital cultural de estas comunidades sin compensarlas de algún modo. Seguidamente, mostraremos cómo la creatividad etnocomputacional puede ayudar a recircular el valor no alienado, nutriendo al mismo tiempo las prácticas artísticas tradicionales y la creación de nuevos caminos para el "patrimonio de los algoritmos" y otras formas de descolonizar la educación STEM.
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