In this ethnographic account of mathematical activity among the Juruna, Kayabi, and Suya of central Brazil, I show how arithmetic practices are fashioned in a specific social setting. Values and symbolic properties of both the gift exchange and capitalist economics structure arithmetic dilemmas in the Xingu Indian Park. Within a broad social field that transcends the boundaries of the park to include prospecting sites and cattle ranches, economic calculations are extended to all kinds of goods, both material and symbolic. The distribution and circulation of these different forms of capital are discussed in view of the constitution of particular arenas of exchange. Practice theories highlight the ways in which mathematical knowledge is constituted in everyday activities, challenging functional assumptions about cognition and schooling. By articulating principles of the gift with those of capitalist exchange, mathematics is construed by the juruna, Kayabi, and Suyá as a product of social work and symbolic fashioning.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.