Abstract

Dr. Hiroko Takeda is Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield and Research Director of the cluster on Social Change and Transition in East Asia at the National Institute of Japanese Studies. She completed her PhD at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, and after having taught at Cardiff University, returned to the School. She specializes in political sociology and her research interests include gender and politics/political economy in Japan and East Asia, social and political theories, biopolitics and governance, political discourse analysis and the political function of the discourse of ‘risk’. Recent publication includes: The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan: Between Nation-State and Everyday Life (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005); and a co-authored article with Glenn D. Hook, ‘“Self-responsibility” and the Nature of the Postwar Japanese State: Risk through the Looking Glass’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2007).