Actual Places

In this chapter, I provide an overview of engagement with space and place in flow research, highlighting both key conceptual shortcomings in constructs of flow and various ways in which geographical terms and ideas are used in ways that are inconsistent with contemporary geographical thinking. With respect to the former, I draw out a mismatch between the lack of conceptualisation of flow in spatial terms despite the empirical evidence of the importance of place for flow experiences, and the tendency to think in unidirectional fashion about the influence of place on flow but not the other way around. With respect to the latter, I identify a conflation of place and activity in discussions of flowability, and essentialised notions of certain spaces as especially conducive to flow. Overall, this chapter encourages the adoption of more performative and emergent notions of place within flow research and sets the scene for more detailed discussion in the next chapter of how flow can be considered generative of both its own space and its own place as part-and-parcel of its transcendental quality.