Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines an affective state of boredom and explores how everyday immobility becomes paradoxically both alienating and reassuring for Chinese migrant shopkeepers in Jamaica.

Paper Abstract:

The life trajectories of Chinese shopkeepers in Jamaica are marked by mobility, as the country is often envisioned as a transient waypoint. Many imagine returning home or migrating to more "developed" countries in North America after accumulating sufficient wealth. Their homemaking efforts are thus always directed toward somewhere else in the future. Yet, their present reality is defined by immobility: confined to shops guarded by iron wire mesh, their routines are shaped by fear, insecurity, and prejudices toward Jamaican society. Once seated at their managerial platforms, shopkeepers rarely move throughout the day, relying on Jamaican employees to provide for their needs. Their primary task is monitoring to prevent theft and robbery, a static vigilance that engenders hours, days, and years of profound boredom.

This paper examines this affective state and explores how everyday immobility becomes both alienating and reassuring for these migrant shopkeepers. Through ethnographic scenes and dialogues, I illustrate how their boredom is not only endured but, paradoxically, sustained – if not desired. Rather than integrating into Kingston’s vibrant multicultural landscape, these migrants choose to inhabit this affective stasis, maintaining a deliberate separation from their surrounding otherness. This paper interrogates immobilization in feelings, and feelings, as ever, remain deeply complex.