Ubiratan D’Ambrosio and ICME-5: scenes of the international constitution of a new search of studies and research

Abstract This text analyzes the Fifth International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-5) as an international stage for the dissemination of ideas that shaped a new field of research: Ethnomathematics. It is based on documents contained in the Ubiratan D’Ambrosio Personal Archive (APUA). The guiding question of the study is: What characteristics shaped the context in which it became possible to internationally articulate the emergence of a new field of research related to mathematics education? The study begins with an introduction to ICME. It then summarizes D’Ambrosio’s trajectory, addresses the formation of the APUA, and examines the context in which ICME-5 took place. Furthermore, it discusses aspects of the lecture delivered by D’Ambrosio, which established him as an international reference for studies on Ethnomathematics.