ABSTRACT

For over more than 40 years, Ubiratan D'Ambrósio communicated nationally/internationally through letters. These documents were organized and kept in a Personal Collection (AP), which contains, in addition to the letters received, copies of those that were sent. Access to these documents was only possible in 2022, after his death in 2021, when the family made a new large volume of documents available to GHEMAT. This donation joins other documents that have been in the Group’s custody for more than 20 years. In this new set, there are approximately 25 thousand cards. According to Gomes (1998, p. 122), “the historian’s discovery/encounter with private archives is reasonably recent, dating back to the 1970s, in Europe in general, and in France in particular”. In Brazil, there are few works in HEM that consider letters as research sources. Access to the letters led these researchers to question the process of constitution and international recognition of mathematics educator Ubiratan D'Ambrósio. This concern came from the observation, from the letters, that after having passed the doctoral defense exam (1963), Ubiratan traveled to the United States (1964) to pursue a post-doctorate in Pure Mathematics. Upon arrival in this country, the letters indicate his search for work; submission of articles derived from the doctorate to scientific journals; proposal for work at North American universities; association in scientific communities, among others. However, at the end of that decade, the letters show job invitations to Ubiratan, but, at this point, they are addressed to the mathematics educator. These findings were decisive for these researchers to seek to understand elements, traces (Ginzburg, 1989), constituents of this process of “transition” from mathematician to internationally recognized mathematics educator. Responding to this concern may contribute to the understanding of processes of knowledge constitution that began to reference the scientific field of Mathematics Education. Results of this investigation will be presented at the 8th ICHME. The relevance of this communication for the event is justified, firstly, by the representativeness of Ubiratan D'Ambrosio for the development of the scientific field of Mathematics Education, especially in Latin America, as well as by his relevance in the creation of sociability networks that constitute and the size of the recognition and importance of an intellectual and expert (Mattos, 2006; Morais, 2019).

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Farge, A. (2022). The flavor of the archive. 1st ed. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo.

Gomes, A.C. (1998). In the meshes of spell: the Historian and the charms of Private Archives. Historical Studies: Personal Archives, 11(21). FGV.

Ginzburg C. (1989). Myths, emblems, signs: morphology and history. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.

Mattos, A.C. Process of historical recognition of a mathematician. In: III International Seminar on Research in Mathematics Education, 2006, Águas de Lindóia – SP. III International Research Seminar on Mathematics Education. Águas de Lindóia – SP: SBEM Brazilian Society of Mathematics Education, 2006. pp. 01–08.

Morais, R.S. (2019). “Intellectual? No”, expert! Acta Scientiae, 21, N. Special, pp. 3–12. https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/201967/Intellectual%2520No%2520-%2520Expert.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y