Cultural Development of Mathematical Ideas Papua Ne Guinea Studies [Paperback]

Geoffrey Saxe traces the emergence of numerical representations and ideas as people participate in collective practices of daily life.Through an ethnographic study of a Papua New Guinea cultural group, Geoffrey Saxe traces the emergence of numerical representations and ideas as people participate in collective practices of daily life. Traditionally, the Oksapmin used a 27-body-part counting system. With shifting practices of economic exchange and schooling, people unwittingly reproduce and alter the system to solve new numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that results in new collective representational forms.Through an ethnographic study of a Papua New Guinea cultural group, Geoffrey Saxe traces the emergence of numerical representations and ideas as people participate in collective practices of daily life. Traditionally, the Oksapmin used a 27-body-part counting system. With shifting practices of economic exchange and schooling, people unwittingly reproduce and alter the system to solve new numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that results in new collective representational forms.Drawing upon field studies conducted in 1978, 1980, and 2001 with the Oksapmin, a remote Papua New Guinea group, Geoffrey B. Saxe traces the emergence of new forms of numerical representations and ideas in the social history of the community. In traditional life, the Oksapmin used a counting system that makes use of twenty-seven parts of the body; there is no evidence that the group used arithmetic in prehistory. As practices of economic exchange and schooling have shifted, children and adults unwittingly reproduced and altered the system in order to solve new kinds of numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that has led to new forms of collective representations in the community. While Dr. Saxes focus is on the Oksapmin, the insights and general framework he provides are useful for understanding shifting representational forms and emerging cognitive functions lƒ°