Peter Chonka is a Lecturer in Global Digital Cultures at King's College London's Department of Digital Humanities. His PhD research (University of Edinburgh) focused on transnational Somali-language media networks and their impact on political identity and state reconstruction in the Horn of Africa. His recent publications have explored the production, dissemination and utilisation of particular types of digital texts in this media ecology, and online/offline contestation between state security forces and militant opposition groups. He has also recently published research on the phenomenon of 'book fairs' in Somalia, and the cultural politics of literacy and state reconstruction.

Between 2017-2019 he was working as a part-time post doctoral research associate on a ESRC/DFID-funded project entitled 'Security on the Move'. This examined forced displacement and urbanisation in Somali cities using narrative interviews and photo-voice methods. 

He 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 for the International Committee of the Red Cross as a Somali-language interpreter primarily in places of detention across Somalia.