Riho Isaka,
Professor – Japan in East Asia
Contact : isaka[at]g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Profile
Riho Isaka is Professor in the Department of Area Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as well as the Director of the Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) at the University of Tokyo. She received her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge and has conducted research in various parts of India since the 1990s. Her publications include Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c.1850-1960 (Routledge, 2021).
Research Interests
Her research interests include issues of language, politics, food, and identity in colonial and postcolonial India, especially Gujarat. She is currently working on a project on memories of houses in modern India and another on women’s magazines in colonial India.
Selected Publications
Isaka, R. (2021) Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c.1850-1960, Abingdon: Routledge.
Isaka, R. (2015) ‘The Multilingual City of Bombay and the Formation of Linguistic States, 1947-60’, in Crispin Bates and Minoru Mio (eds), Cities in South Asia, Abingdon: Routledge.
Isaka, R. (2006) ‘Gujarati Elites and the Construction of a Regional Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century’ in Crispin Bates (ed.), Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Isaka, R. (2002) ‘Gujarati Intellectuals and History Writing in the Colonial Period’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37(48), 4867-4872.
Isaka, R. (2002) ‘Language and Dominance: The Debates over the Gujarati Language in the Late Nineteenth Century’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 25(1), 1-19.
Isaka, R. and Yamane, S. (eds) (2019) Shoku kara Egaku Indo: Kingendaino Shakaihenyo to Aidentiti (Food, Social Change, and Identities in Modern India), Yokohama: Shumpusha. (in Japanese)
Tsuchiya, K. and Isaka, R. (eds) (2024) Intersectionality: Interlocking Power Relations in the Contemporary World, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. (in Japanese)
Awaya, T., Inoue, T. and Isaka, R. (eds) (2015) Gendai Indo 5: Shuenkarano Koe (Contemporary India 5: Voices from the Margin). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. (in Japanese)