Speaker Biography

Sinfree Makoni was born in Zimbabwe. He holds a BA in English (Hons) with a specialty in Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Edinburgh University, Scotland. He taught at several universities in southern Africa, notably the University of the Western Cape, Bellville, and University of Cape Town. He was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan.

He is currently a Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and the African Studies Program at Pennsylvania State University, Extraordinary Professor at University of the Western Cape and North-West University, and a Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela University. He was a Carnegie Diaspora Fellow at Laikipia University, Kenya.

He has published extensively in the areas of Language and Aging, Language and Security, Language Policy and Planning, Southern Epistemologies, and Decoloniality. He has published 120 articles and book chapters and co-edited 15 books. His most recent publications include Innovations and Challenges to Applied Linguistics from the Global South (co-authored with A. Pennycook; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2020); Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South (S. Makoni, D. Verity, & A. Kaiper-Marquez, eds.; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2021); The Languaging of Higher Education in the Global South: De-Colonizing the Language of Scholarship and Pedagogy (S. Makoni, C. Severo, A. Abdelhay & A. Kapier-Marquez, eds.; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2022); Language in the Global Souths S. Makoni, A., Kaiper-Marquez, & L. Mokwena, eds., London and New York: Routledge Press, 2022); and Decolonial Voices, Language and Race (S. Makoni, M. Madany-Saa, B. Antia, & R. Gomez, eds., Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2022). He is the architect of the African Studies Global Forum, which seeks to engage scholars in both the Global North and Global South, and the co-editor of the new Multilingual Matters book series Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies. He currently serves as co-editor of the Journal of Applied Linguistics.