Recent years have seen a repositioning in the focus of river research towards a deeper understanding the diverse, humanised, dynamic and muddy worlds of river islands existing within the rivers. River islands are relatively small, often transient pieces of land that exist between the banks of rivers. They are found in most large river systems in the world and abound in the Himalayan Rivers in South Asia where they are known variously as char, chapori, baet, and diara among others. Primarily a product of fluvial dynamics, some river islands are also formed due to catastrophic tectonic events, and, at times, human interventions. These are unique geographies: transitory, and hybrid – part water, part land – that defy, and blur, conventional notions of borders and territorialities. These islands constantly suffer from environmental disasters such as flood and soil erosion, as well as human interventions in the form of sand mining and infrastructural projects such as large dams and bridges. Globally, millions of people live on river islands, practicing different forms of agrarian livelihoods that these fragile ecologies can support. In South Asia, the char-dwellers, or choruas (or chouras), are people who are both economically and socially on the margins. A sizable section of this population also consists of migrants and refugees, people who are constantly on the move, and are therefore at the mercy of the state. Despite a growing body of scholarship in island studies, river islands have thus far gained little attention from island scholars. By engaging with various socio-ecological questions of river islands from an interdisciplinary perspective, my research attempts to foreground river islands in island research. Furthermore, I also aim at forging collaborations with scholars from diverse disciplines and around the world to develop a robust research network on river islands.