Shazia Iftkhar

Shazia Iftkhar is a Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. A native of Pakistan, she lived in France as a child before coming to the United States for higher education. In France, she noticed tensions between minority immigrants and majority French culture, and her observations stayed with her for over a decade, slowly drawing her back to research questions related to global migration flows, postcoloniality, and the relations between diaspora, homeland, and hostland. She also became interested in media as the site of contestation regarding issue of cultural and national identity, and hopes to study French media to examine narratives about the integration of North African Muslim immigrants and their descendants into French society. This summer, Shazia will use the Scott Kloeck-Jenson grant to make and develop research contacts in Paris, to locate and access media archives related to her research.