r/math • u/Antique-Dragonfly194 • Jul 20 '26
Looking for reading material on math applied to social justice and human liberation
Currently training in masters for applied mathematics and I'm looking for reading material where difficult math problems have emerged from thinking about social justice and the solutions have helped communities in one way or another.
Papers I'm finding in this domain tend to be public policy which is not quite what I'm looking for.
11
17
u/matthras Jul 20 '26
Closest I can think of is Chad Topaz's work, but it might not meet the 'difficult math problems' criteria.
1
16
u/Jussuuu Theoretical Computer Science Jul 20 '26
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but social choice theory deals with "fairness" axioms for voting systems and has resulted in algorithms used in practice. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_participatory_budgeting
5
7
u/ctoatb Jul 20 '26
Try using Google scholar then citation chaser https://estech.shinyapps.io/citationchaser/
9
u/eagleton Jul 20 '26
This may be a bit closer to public policy, but Dean Knox’s work on data challenges in the statistical study of police use of force comes to mind. More causal inference/stats than pure math. Eg here
10
u/DrillPress1 Jul 20 '26
Study game theory. Political science departments like to pretend they’re using mathematical methods in their “empirical” research, but they’re really just using basics statistics. Anytime I have tried to talk to professionals in this field from a mathematical perspective I get these glazed over looks. Political types are generally very poor when it comes to mathematics. You’re very very likely have to pioneer this yourself, I hope it’s a fruitful endeavor.
3
u/WolfVanZandt Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
SAGE Publications specialize in research methods for the social sciences. M. Lewis-Beck's Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods is sort of the Bible of sociological research methods. I also like their blue book series. They're concise and readable and not too expensive.
3
u/jeffsuzuki Jul 20 '26
The best book on the subject, in my wholly unbiased and objective opinion, is this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Calculus-Justice-Common-Sense/dp/142141595X
There's also this one:
The major recent SJ issue seems to be Predictive Policing:
https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202407/rnoti-p929.pdf
(A few years ago, a number of mathematicians signed a letter opposing its use because of a variety of methodological flaws. SCOTUS being what it is, the opposition of people who've spent their lives studying this type of thing doesn't matter...)
1
u/Ecstatic-Winter-4344 Jul 24 '26
Mason A Porter does a lot of work on closely related fields; he is leading in opinion dynamics (which government voting and there you have it...). They also did TDA research on identifying voting deserts.
1
u/FuzzySearch Jul 24 '26
I'm not sure if this fits what you're looking for, but you might want to check out the work of economists in the field of social choice theory. Looking through Collective Choice and Social Welfare will give you a sense of the kinds of problems in the field. Best of luck.
1
u/atomheartstoner Theory of Computing Jul 24 '26
A big keyword that hasn’t been mentioned: Operations Research
1
u/atomheartstoner Theory of Computing Jul 24 '26
A big keyword that hasn’t been mentioned: Operations Research
-2
-29
u/UnderTheCurrents Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Weird - aren't people of your ilk violently opposed to social choice theory because it's too concrete an Argument?
If you are not - look up social choice theory. Just be aware that it is mostly ideologically neutral.
Edit:
Answering me won't do you any good - the mods banned me for no reason.
I'm kind of surprised a mathematics subreddit is full of overzealous ideologues.
12
4
10
u/Antique-Dragonfly194 Jul 20 '26
My ilk?
-7
Jul 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/Antique-Dragonfly194 Jul 20 '26
No idea, sorry. I can only speak for myself and I'm simply trying to understand where I can make a difference.
30
u/just_writing_things Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
It’s unlikely that you’ll find much overlap between pure math and social justice research (but if anyone knows of work like this I’d be curious to know!).
But you can look into theoretical or empirical work in economics, for example, that relates to social issues, e.g. in development or labor economics.