Members
13th
Term: Apr. 2023 ～
:Global Type
:Tenure-track Type
● Mai MISAKI Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Anthropology
Research Topic: Rising from the Ground: Exploration of Social and Political Change through the Restoration of Land-Human Relationships in French Polynesia
Host Department: Human and Environmental Studies
Previous Affiliation: University of Oxford
Short Introduction
I am a social anthropologist interested in theorising the intersection of religion (particularly Christianity), colonialism, and social movements. My specialist region is Oceania, and I currently conduct long-term fieldwork in French Polynesia (Māòhi Nui in its Indigenous name). Previously, I studied local Protestant theology and how people reconstruct Indigenous history and explore their identity through religion. I am also broadly interested in issues surrounding Indigenous cultural revitalisation and have worked on internal conflicts and challenges in transmitting intangible and uninstitutionalised knowledge, including language, traditional medicine, and dance practices. Throughout my time at the Hakubi centre, I focus on the ‘land’ (fenua in Tahitian) as the key concept to reveal contemporary predicaments and future visions of the Pacific nation. Specifically, I will scrutinise how Indigenous actors cultivate an extralegal, apolitical relationship with the land and how it maps out models of indigenous sovereignty and drafts the political prospects of the territory.
