Dr Maria Paola Pofi is Guest Teacher in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE.

Paola completed her LAHP-funded PhD in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London in July 2023. Her doctoral thesis is entitled 'Postfeminist subjectivities across borders: Italian-Bangladeshi Muslim young women’s self-representations in digital media culture' (See here). In the study, Paola explored how second-generation South Asian Muslim women living in Europe (Italy and the UK) perform and visually represent their feminine, racialised, and religious subjectivities in and through their social networking profiles. In particular, she investigated gender performativity in relation to postfeminist and neoliberal tendencies on the one hand, and the intersectional positioning and lived experience of a racialised ethnic and religious minority in Europe on the other hand. Paola is currently adapting her thesis into journal articles.

Paola has an MSc in Media and Communications from LSE, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Social and Political Communications from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. Her research interests include gender, identity and the media; migration and mobility; media culture, diversity, and inequality; media representations and media audiences. Paola has previous job experience as a communications officer in NGOs in Italy and India.