Banca de DEFESA: MARCOS VINICIUS DOS SANTOS SOUZA

SMASHING EPISTEMOLOGICAL MASKS OF THE CURRENT ANASTASIAS: UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACTS OF PRODUCTIONS AFRICAN WOMEN FOR MATHEMATICS IN THE CENTURY XX AND XXI

Afrocentricity; Cosmoperception; History of women in Mathematics; African women in mathematics

The field of mathematics is an environment dominated by white men. Undoubtedly, in recent years there has been a small increase in production scientific studies of women in mathematics, particularly black researchers in Africa and diaspora. However, the invisibility of these productions and contributions in Brazilian academic circles has been perpetuated by colonialism, which made ubiquity is its main characteristic and rhetoric is its main path, passing through a metamorphosis with the aim of resignification, aiming at adapting to the current times. In this context, this research focuses on presenting, investigate, discuss these productions and contributions. More generally, we will investigate how the productions of African women for mathematics in 20th and 21st centuries collaborate with the deconstruction of Eurocentric metanarratives. In this way, the chosen cosmoperception is called Afrocentricity, which, methodologically associated with African historiography, will guide the dissertation. In due to the enormous quantity of scientific productions, it would be unfeasible, for a master's project, an analysis with all of them, so an outline was necessary. Therefore, we chose to investigate the contributions of some members – all members are women - from the African Women In Mathematics Association (AWMA). A anticipation was due to two criteria: cultural diversities of members, therefore, are spread across the entire African continent; the existence of a document on the association's website containing a written interview granted by several associates commenting on their family, career, area of research, projects, education, dreams, challenges, among other information. A dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first presents the scope of the search. The second will bring an African historiographical summary from the perspective endogenous, deconstructing the Eurocentric version imposed since the 16th century, showing that the African continent is the cradle of civilization, advancing towards the 20th and 21st centuries, which is the period delimited in research, setting the stage for our stars.