Peter Chonka completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies in 2017. His doctoral research focused on transnational Somali-language media networks and their impact on the cultural politics of state reconstruction in the Horn of Africa. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Peter has subsequently published his research across various fields, primarily exploring how digital technologies and the new media environment affect political reconstruction, civil society activism, mobility and conflict in so-called ‘fragile’ states.
Peter was previously part of the ESRC/DFID-funded ‘Security on the Move’ research project, using innovative visual methods to develop sustained research collaborations with displaced people and explore their experiences of mobility, security and labour in Somali cities. Peter previously taught in the fields of African Politics and Development Studies at SOAS and Birkbeck (University of London). Prior to his doctoral research he worked as a Somali-interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross, primarily in places of detention across Somalia.
