Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I discuss the need to reconsider the morality of spatial movements from a time perspective. For this purpose, I take the example of my ethnographic research which explores how Chinese migrants in London challenge the ideology of social mobility and its narrative of a progressive and linear time by gambling.

Among the hugely diversified Chinese population of London, high expectations of success are a recurrent leitmotiv of the migration project shaped on the terms of a common Chinese identity. However, beyond the narrative of rag-to-riches success stories which implies a unique and constant progression upward, experiences of time are in fact unequal and uneven across space and between individuals. So when Chinese migrants come to gamble in the casino it is to forget about the imperatives of this dominant narrative. Expectation and memory are put on hold to better enjoy the rhythm created by their own actions.