Spaces of Flow Manipulation

This chapter initiates a deeply critical argument not only on the conceptual level, by questioning the growing employment of distinctions drawn between good or bright flow and bad or dark flow, but also on an applied level, by thinking about flow beyond its (inter-)personal nature as an experience to consider its changing situation within (Western) society as it is increasingly used to enhance performance, wellbeing and profit. It is argued that this fundamental shift in our understanding and treatment of flow heralds a dystopian future for flow wherein it is vulnerable to conscription into hegemonic agendas and manipulation as a tool of governance to entrench growing inequalities under neoliberalism by exploiting the working population through the fetishisation of the qualities of flow. This chapter thus asserts its own critiques of flow and sets the scene for the expansion and deepening of this argument in the next chapter, which moves the spotlight away from the scale of the individual and their immediate context (e.g., work, therapy) to explore the broader ramifications of such trajectories at the global scale.