Takashi Yamazaki is Professor of Geography at Osaka Metropolitan University, Japan. His current research interest concerns the (de)militarization of Okinawa and the critical geopolitics of Japanese foreign policy. He was/is a steering committee member of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Political Geography (2004–2016) and the Commission on Islands (2024–). He served as an editorial board member of Political Geography and Geopolitics for many years. His publications include Relational Geographies of Islands in the Indo-Pacific (2025, co-edited with Godfrey Baldacchino) and ‘Rethinking relational geopolitics in contested islands and seas: theoretical and empirical considerations’ (Geopolitics forthcoming, co-authored with Sasha Davis).