Thwarted selves: neoliberal boredom among Aotearoa New Zealand peacekeepers

Abstract

The boredom of soldiers on peacekeeping missions cannot be reduced to the absence of combat. Boredom occurs when soldiers cannot find any activity which engages them. The activities they desire to perform, but cannot, are performances of their desired selves. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with Aotearoa New Zealand soldiers deployed to the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, this article argues that the self that cannot be performed is not always the warrior self, defined by combat experience. New Zealand peacekeepers’ boredom was caused not so much by lack of combat as by lack of opportunity to practice a neoliberal desire to work on and transform themselves. This was a form of ‘neoliberal boredom’: restlessness caused by desire with no fixed or specific object, as no one activity can continually provide new and transformative experiences. This case study demonstrates that we should be wary of reducing soldier boredom to single, or solely military, causes.