A Etnomatemática e as unidades de comprimento e área no campo

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper aims at understanding, in the light of Ethnomathematics, the use of the units of length and area in the countryside. Through a theoretical review, it investigates the cultural knowledge in the rural environment and the units of measurement used by farmers as a way to associate the cultural tradition of space, by presenting the agricultural measures such as: fathom, hectare, bushel and span, associating the mathematical practices and knowledge used in the rural environment by the workers with the Brazilian decimal metric system. The methodology used was a bibliographic review in printed and electronic materials about the measures used by rural workers in the context of subsistence agriculture. The analysis and discussion is based on the concept and examples of situations involving mathematics in different contexts, especially in the everyday life of rural farmers about the most commonly used units for calculating areas and measurements, taking the official units as a reference, but considering their own realities, in order to preserve the knowledge that is usually passed down from generation to generation only through oral communication.