Astronomies, Cultures and Education

LÓPEZ, ALEJANDRO M.

Heildelberg

Workshop; 3rd Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education. What Everybody Should Know about Astronomy Education; 2021

International Astronomical Union Office of Astronomy for Education

Some people talk about "astronomy" (the academic Westernone) and "cultural astronomies" (the astronomies of "particular"cultures). This is a profound misunderstanding of the legacy ofthree decades of cultural astronomy studies. In this presentationwe aim to discuss this confusion and to point out the contributionsof cultural astronomy studies in thinking about astronomicaleducation from an intercultural perspective. The sky and theirphenomena have been an area of great interest for many culturesthroughout the planet over time. In "Western culture", since theCopernican revolution, astronomy has become a model for allscience. Due to the colonial expansion of the Western societytheir academic astronomy is taught today in the most diverseplaces on Earth. However, cultural astronomy has shown usthat every astronomy is the result of a history and a society."Western academic astronomy" is not "the" astronomy, and itis grounded -like all the others- on a series of implicit culturalassumptions. A truly inclusive and decolonial scientic educationfor our present and future world, supposes the possibility forthe students and teachers of a critical appropriation of "Westernacademic astronomy", and the chance of putting it in dialogue withthe astronomical knowledge systems of their own societies.