Discursive Investments, Symbolic Returns: The Reproduction of Jamaica’s Spatial Imaginaries on Instagram

• In Event: 40214 - Digital Sociology: Politics, Artificial Intelligence, and Online Community

Abstract

The return pathways of young diasporic adults are often examined through economic and socio-cultural lenses—framing return as a strategy for professional advancement or cultural belonging. This paper highlights an overlooked dimension: how the homeland itself is perceived. These perceptions, or “spatial imaginaries” (Watkins, 2015), are socially constructed narratives about the homeland that invariably shape how return is imagined, navigated, and eventually enacted.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, this paper represents an entry point into theorizing social media as a site of symbolic struggle over the dominant spatial imaginaries of a homeland. I argue that social media content creators play a key role in shaping and reproducing Jamaica’s spatial imaginary. While the state traditionally dominated this process, social media has democratized public meaning-making, allowing content creators to curate and circulate their own imaginaries of the island. Yet, rather than challenging state narratives, many influencers reinforce them—emphasizing investment, lifestyle, and opportunity.

Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kingston, Jamaica—including participant observation, document analysis, and a digital autoethnographic analysis of my own Instagram platform (where I amassed 10,000+ followers sharing practical information and experiential insights about relocating to Jamaica as a diasporic Jamaican)—I examine how social media users within the Jamaican diasporic field “discursively invest” in particular spatial imaginaries of Jamaica. Such investments provide “returns” in the form of symbolic capital. Symbolic returns are higher for those whose imaginaries align with state narratives, offering potential conversion into economic and social capital within the diasporic field.

Social media does not merely reflect a Jamaica with any fixed ontological existence—it actively constructs and legitimizes particular visions of the island, raising critical questions about the role of power and legitimacy in shaping diasporic/ethnic return in the digital age.

Author

• Kayonne Christy, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor