Multidimensional ecologies of mathematical life

Source abstract

In this paper, I introduce multidimensional ecologies of mathematical life (MEMaL), a framework for understanding mathematics as a lived practice that extends across formal instruction and everyday life, and is shaped by social, material, and political conditions. MEMaL identifies five ecological dimensions. <i>Spatial ecologies</i> concern embodied engagement with tools, materials, and arrangements that organize participation. <i>Temporal ecologies</i> attend to the rhythms, repetitions, and durations through which mathematical ideas gain continuity. <i>Epistemic ecologies</i> concern locally valued criteria for credible or worthwhile mathematical knowledge, while <i>affective ecologies</i> foreground the atmospheres shaping recognition, belonging, confidence, and risk-taking. <i>Imaginative ecologies</i> address how individuals and communities envision mathematical futures, identities, and possibilities. MEMaL’s distinctive contribution is its focus on ecological configuration: how spatial, temporal, epistemic, affective, and imaginative conditions come together and alter one another. Changes within one dimension can therefore reorganize possibilities for mathematical participation, recognition, and becoming across the wider ecology. These dimensions sit within broader political forces that shape an environmental context and determine whose participation becomes visible, credible, and valued. Mathematical activity, on this account, cannot be separated from environments that enable or restrain participation and shape whether that participation is recognized and valued. MEMaL therefore offers researchers and educators a way to examine these interdependencies and the mathematical lives they make possible.