Liminal Nostalgia: Internet Cafés, Immobile Millennials, and Suspended Identity in Hebei, China

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of “liminal nostalgia” to explore urban millennials' attachments to internet cafés in China. Initially stigmatized as sites of gaming addiction leading to personal failure, these places are being reshaped by the civilizing agenda of urban renewal. Focusing ethnographically on a regional city in Hebei Province, I trace a group of local millennials who grew up immersed in internet cafés and are geographically immobile. While existing literature often frames urban nostalgia as a reconstruction or critical acceptance of past identities, I argue that focusing on individuals' suspended identity offers a more productive understanding. In adulthood, local working-class regulars who continue to frequent internet cafés are positioned in a liminal status by multiple social expectations—including national discourses, local moral standards, and personal commitments to upward mobility. As a result, I reveal that nostalgic emotion possesses an anti-structural dimension—critically embracing the past while facing a fatalistic impotence towards unrealized possibilities. Ultimately, by examining the transformation of internet café spaces within urban renewal, this study reveals the affective entanglement between place nostalgia, masculinity, and thwarted social mobility.