Miki Makihara
Professor
Ph.D, Yale University 1999
Office: Powdermaker Hall 312D
Phone: (718) 997-5513
Fax: (718) 997-2885
Email: miki.makihara@qc.cuny.edu
Miki Makihara is a linguistic anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at Queens College and the Ph.D. Programs in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY). She studies communication and society, and is interested in understanding the ways in which interaction contributes to maintaining and transforming community and inequality. Her research combines ethnography, discourse analysis, and oral history. She has been engaged in long-term research on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and written about its sociolinguistic situation, multilingualism, Indigenous and ethnic identity formation, communicative ideologies, and language reclamation and revitalization. She is currently working on politics of stance-taking and social change.
Research Focus
- Linguistic anthropology
- Discourse analysis
- Ethnography
- Semiotics
- Language and politics
- Multilingual practices
- Language contact
- Language revitilization
- Indigenous movements
- Polynesia, the Pacific, Latin America
Courses Taught
- Language, Culture, and Society (104)
- Language, Gender, and Ethnicity (239)
- Language and Social Identity (280)
- Voices of New York (388)
- Anthropology of Bilingualism (330)
- Globalization and Language (380)
- Core Course in Linguistic Anthropology (Grad Center)
- Language Ideologies and Practices (Grad Center)
Publications
Makihara, Miki, and Juan L. Rodríguez. In press. Stancemaking, Language, and Political Subjectivities. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. (Forthcoming in July 2025).
Makihara, Miki, and Juan Rodríguez A. 2022a. Lived Beliefs. Persuasion and Self in Rapa Nui Poetry. Language, Culture, and Society 4(1):47-67. PDF file
Berrios, M., V. Haoa, M. Makihara, and J. Conning. 2022b. Medición Lingüística a estudiantes de Educación Parvularia, Enseñanza Básica y Media de Rapa Nui, 2021–2022 Informe Final de Resultados. Hanga Roa, Easter Island. UNESCO Report. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2021. Syncrétisme linguistique et idéologies langagières : transformation de la « diglossie coloniale » à Rapa Nui (Île de Pâques). In Créoles, pidgins et idéologies linguistiques dans le Pacifique, edited by Leslie Vandeputte and Véronique Fillol, pp. 201-235. Paris: L’Harmattan. Cahiers du Pacifique sud contemporain. Paris, L’Harmattan. PDF file
Makihara, Miki, and Bambi Schieffelin. 2021. Rencontres interculturelles, trajectoires langagières et idéologies linguistiques dans les sociétés du Pacifique. In Créoles, pidgins et idéologies linguistiques dans le Pacifique, edited by Leslie Vandeputte and Véronique Fillol, pp. 96-137. Cahiers du Pacifique sud contemporain. Paris: L’Harmattan. PDF file
Makihara, Miki, and Juan Rodríguez A. 2020. Anthropology of Language Contact and its Sociocultural Contexts. In Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology, edited by J. Jackson Jr. Oxford University Press. PDF file
Rodríguez, Juan, and Miki Makihara. 2019. Postura, poder y política. Anuario de Glotopolítica 3. PDF file
Lane, Pia, and Miki Makihara. 2017. Indigenous Peoples and Their Languages. In Handbook of Language and Society, edited by Ofelia Garcia, Nelson Flores, and Max Spotti, pp. 299–319. Oxford University Press. PDF file
Alagözlü, Nuray, and Miki Makihara. 2015. Conflict Resolution Strategies in Turkish and American Speech Communities: A School Setting. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2(3):177–97. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2013. Language, Competence, Use, Ideology, and Community on Rapa Nui. Special issue on “Centering and Decentering Communicative Competence.” Language & Communication 33(4):439–49. Issue editors: Kuniyoshi Kataoka, Keiko Ikeda, and Niko Besnier. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2010. Linguistic Syncretism and Language Ideologies: Transforming Sociolinguistic Hierarchy on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). In Anthropological Linguistics: Theories and Practices, edited by Bambi Schieffelin and Paul Garrett, Vol. 5, pp. 182–203. Routledge. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2010. Anthropology. In Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, 2nd edition, edited by Joshua A. Fishman and Ofelia García, pp.32-48. New York: Oxford University Press. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2009. Heterogeneity in Linguistic Practice, Competence, and Ideology: Language and Community on Easter Island. In The Native Speaker Concept: Ethnographic Investigations of Native Speaker Effects, edited by Neriko M. Doerr, pp.249-275. Mouton de Gruyter. PDF file
Tomlinson, Matt, and Miki Makihara. 2009. New Paths in the Linguistic Anthropology of Oceania. Annual Review of Anthropology 38:17-31. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2009. El lenguaje en Rapa Nui. In Kuhane Rapa Nui, en las islas del Pacífico, edited by Claudio Gómez and Marcos Rauch, pp.26-28. Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda.
Makihara, Miki, and Bambi B. Schieffelin (eds.). 2007. Consequences of Contact: Language Ideologies and Sociocultural Transformations in Pacific Societies. Oxford University Press. (Available as a QC Library Ebook here)
Makihara, Miki, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2007. Cultural Processes and Linguistic Mediations: Pacific Explorations . In Consequences of Contact: Language Ideologies and Sociocultural Transformations in Pacific Societies, edited by Miki Makihara and Bambi Schieffelin, pp.3-29. New York: Oxford University Press. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2007. Linguistic Purism in Rapa Nui Political Discourse. In Consequences of Contact: Language Ideologies and Sociocultural Transformations in Pacific Societies, edited by Miki Makihara and Bambi Schieffelin, pp.49-69. New York: Oxford University Press. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2005. Rapa Nui Ways of Speaking Spanish: Language Shift and Socialization on Easter Island. Language in Society 34(5): 727-762. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2005. Being Rapa Nui, Speaking Spanish: Children’s Voices on Easter Island. Anthropological Theory 5(2):117-134. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2005. Rapa Nui. In Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by H. James Birx, pp.1985-1989. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2004. Linguistic Syncretism and Language Ideologies: Transforming Sociolinguistic Hierarchy on Rapa Nui ( Easter Island ). American Anthropologist 106(3):529-540. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2002. Book review of Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, edited by Paul Kroskrity (Advanced Seminar Series, School of American Research Press , 2000). American Ethnologist 29(1):176-177.
Makihara, Miki. 2001. Modern Rapanui Adaptation of Spanish Elements. Oceanic Linguistics 40(2):191-222. PDF file
Makihara, Miki. 2001. Book review of Rongorongo : The Easter Island Script, History, Traditions, Texts, by Steven Roger Fischer (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1998). Anthropological Linguistics 43(1):111-115.