Marcus Macktima (pronounced: Mack-tee-ma)
Assistant Professor | Faculty Member
Northern Arizona University | San Carlos Apache College
Member of San Carlos Apache Tribe
Bio
Marcus Macktima (American Pronunciation: Mak-tee-ma) is a historian and member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe who belongs to the k’aìntcí·dn clan, with lineages to the Hopi, and Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
He currently serves as an assistant professor in American Indian history at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and assists his tribal community as an instructor teaching Apache History at the San Carlos Apache College (SCAC). He joined the college in the summer of 2019 and since then has worked with the college to develop the current iteration of the HIS 130 Apache History course that is largely based on his dissertation research. Recently, Dr. Macktima worked to create the HIS 230 Intro to Apache Historiography course to expand student’s exposure to the history of the Apachean peoples. He was recently awarded Faculty of the Year by the college for the 2024-2025 academic year.
His educational career started at Peridot HeadStart and Rice Elementary, but completed his public-school education in Glendale, AZ. He attended Paradise Valley Community College and Oklahoma City Community College, acquiring associates degrees from both institutions. He now holds a Bachelor of Arts in history with a minor in Native American Studies (NAS), and a Master of Arts in Native American Studies (NAS), both from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Macktima completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma in the spring of 2022, completing a dissertation titled, Deconstructing the Apache Identity: A History of the San Carlos Apachean Peoples. His work centers around bringing the history of the San Carlos Apachean peoples into the twentieth and twenty first centuries and move the people beyond the stereotypes of the “Apache Wars” in the nineteenth century. His first published academic work was an essay in the anthology series “The North American West in the Twenty-First Century,” where he analyzes the issues between traditional and colonial forms of Apachean identity and its underlying consequences in contemporary land disputes at both Dził Nchaa Si’an (Mount Graham) and Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat). A chapter from his dissertation entitled, A Manufactured Identity: Cattle-Raising, the Coolidge Dam, and the Creation of the San Carlos Apachean Peoples, was also published in the Summer 2023 “all indigenous” issue of the Journal of Arizona History where he analyzed the creation of the “San Carlos” Apache identity. During his graduate training, he worked with the BBC as a consultant on the documentary series, Sacred Wonders, and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma as a cultural assistant, assisting with research and developing the Apache Language program. He also helped the Oklahoma tribe with grant writing and successfully acquired an Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant and a Cultural Resources Fund (CRF) language grant that expanded language classes to Oklahoma City for members to attend.
In the fall of 2024, Dr. Macktima assisted the San Carlos Apache College with a grant submission to IMLS that was awarded to the tribe and college. The grant will serve to bring about the first Apache History textbook to be provided to the San Carlos Apache community for use in the college’s Apache history courses, and the community at large. Additionally, he served the NAU community as a Co-Director for a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Teacher Institute grant awarded in the fall of 2025, that was entitled, Indigenous Histories of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. His speaking engagements include a guest lecture at the University of New Mexico’s Center for the Southwest in the fall of 2023, and lectures at the Amerind Museum’s Autumn Fest in the fall of 2024.