A new book studies how Indian women ‘Instapoets’ are forming new collective cultural identifications

Cultures and communities on Instagram and Facebook are bound by common interests and may often reveal underlying ideological inclinations. Through the process of interpellation, they also have a profound impact on self-perception and the construction of identity. Taking into consideration the importance of processes of globalisation for the production and transformation of knowledge and cultural norms, the essay will discuss the poetry of Rupi Kaur, Nayyirah Waheed and Nikita Gill on Instagram, and the complexities of interpretation which emerge in their approach towards the identity of “postcolonial” women in popular culture.

The works of these young women poets suggest a wide range of cultural references and appeal to a mass culture, displacing the traditional canon of English poetry for its modern readers who are more familiar with an Instagram culture than the discipline of literature. They exist in a hybrid digital universe with a plethora of communities mimicking the structures of collective society and developing through interpersonal interaction. These new “hybrid” poets, who have acquired celebrity status, function as both influencers and creative producers, and through their poetry they present vastly multiplying opportunities for exchange and reproduction. Through their work they attempt to construct belonging and identity, albeit through a virtual...

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