He has been a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral (JSPS) Fellow at Kyoto University and a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Akio Tanabe is Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies and the Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India, Kyoto University. His publications include the award-winning Caste and equality: Historical anthropology of local society and vernacular democracy in India (in Japanese) (Tokyo, 2010). Shinya Ishizaka is a Visiting Associate Professor, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University and Research Fellow, Center for Area Studies, National Institutes for the Humanities. He is the author of Environmental movement in India: Gandhism and 'connective politics' (in Japanese) (Kyoto, 2011).