Resumen de Ubiratan D’ambrosio [1932-2021] – ethnomathematics educator for the twenty-first century

Anthony G.Shannon

• Ubiratan D’Ambrosio was Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo. He was born in Brazil on 8 December 1932 and died there on 12 May 2021. He was widely known and respected as a mathematics educator and historian of mathematics (Karp & Roberts, 2014). It was in ethnomathematics (coined by analogy with ethnomusicology) that his contributions were pioneering: initially in the culture of colonization, and later in culture more generally, particularly in terms of international peace (D’Ambrosio, 1985, 1990, 1993, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2002, 2004, 2006; D’Ambrosio & Marmé, 1998).

  Ubi served on the Editorial Board of this journal since its inception, at the invitation of its Founding Editor, Professor Avi Bajpai OBE of Loughborough University. His pioneering work in ethnomathematics alone is especially worthy of note, because many of its features can shed light on some current controversies in mathematics curriculum development in various countries, including Australia and parts of the US. These can be seen from the titles of some of his publications. There are worthwhile theses and dissertations awaiting those prepared to delve deeply and apply appropriately in their own cultural contexts the fascinating insights which arise from Ubi’s life work (Mesquita et al., 2011; Rosa et al., 2011).