Math lessons from Liberia

Over five years of ethnographic research in Monrovia, Liberia (1973—8), I was engaged in research in a mud-pathed alley at the edge of the commercial district, lined with 20 shacks, housing 100 Vai and Gola tailors, their treadle sewing machines, and 150 apprentices. Given the variety of relations math entered into during the course of the tailors’ lives, it became increasingly important to explore what it might mean to understand Vai and Gola...