Abstract

In this chapter, we address critical researchers’ calls to examine the role of mathematics and its education in formatting, shaping, and contributing to sustaining cultural, military, and racial projects that result in dehumanizing and oppressing some populations. We question the extent to which the current mathematics education system of practices is a substantive part of cultural, military, and racial conflicts. Three spaces where mathematics education was and is being developed regarding situations of conflict are introduced. First is the Space of Denial in which violence, oppression, social domination, and conflict as well as their effects in the mathematics education system of practices are rendered invisible. School mathematics becomes generic, homogeneous, and prototypical. Second is the Space of Suspension, which is characterized by a recognition of the political struggles and tensions that surround the mathematics education system of practices. In this space, such struggles and tensions may emerge in classrooms. However, they also can provide a temporary pause from these realities and schools become bubbles in which violence and oppression are suspended and receive a momentary suspension. Here we present our own stories as critical scholars doing research in situations of cultural, military, and racial violence and oppression. Finally, we introduce the Space of Resistance to advance a discussion about how mathematics education could be approached within the context of realities of violence and oppression. By considering this space, we focus on some absent yet critical aspects of mathematics education research. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.