About Kanwal Mukhtar

Kanwal Mukhtar is a doctoral candidate at the University of Trier, holding an M.A. in Anglophone Modernities in Literature and Culture from the University of Potsdam. Funded by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and supervised by JProf. Dr. Jennifer Leetsch, her PhD project is titled “Digital Diasporas and Feminist Resistance: Intersectional Cultural Production in Postcolonial Platform Ecologies”. The research investigates how South Asian diasporic women utilize digital platforms—specifically Instagram, TikTok, and podcasts—to articulate intersectional feminist resistance and negotiate transnational identities. Grounded in postcolonial feminist theory, intersectionality, and critical media studies, her work employs discourse analysis, aesthetic critique, and auto-phenomenology to examine how creators navigate algorithmic logics and counter Western feminist universalism within commodified digital spaces.

Her academic foundation consistently interrogates the intersections of race, gender, media, and colonial legacies. In her master's thesis, she critically examined “Dissociation Feminism” as an extension of white feminism, analyzing how contemporary popular culture commodifies women's pain while marginalizing women of color. Her broader scholarship focuses on strategies for decolonizing feminist movements and analyzing postcolonial themes in South Asian literature. Alongside her academic research, her creative work explores themes of trauma, resilience, and systemic silencing in postcolonial Pakistan.