Email: fareeha.akhtar@qmul.ac.uk
My PhD project looks at how women in urban Pakistan use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to explore modes of personal representation, networked identity formation and self-perceptions of identity through the curation, sharing and posting of content and parasocial interactions. I aim to do this by looking at real experiences and personal perspectives of these women, through the method of phenomenology. Through this, I aim to better understand how digital platforms may remediate gender dynamics in Pakistan.
My academic background has always been interdisciplinary since I graduated from GCU Lahore with an undergraduate degree in English Literature with a minor in History and Political Science. I then went on to graduate from the University of Nottingham with a Masters in Marketing with Distinction. Currently, I am on the QMUL SBM PhD Studentship and also teach intermittently at the university. In between the gaps in my academic career, I have over four years of experience in the marketing as well as the development sector.