Enrolling bodies, feasting on space: How wellbeing serves the forms and flows of a new capitalism

Abstract

In this paper we seek a deeper appreciation and understanding of wellbeing through an exploration of the different ways it is put to work in contemporary economic and social relations, and the divergent valences and tensions it evokes in these relations. To this end we explore some of the distinct features of a new capitalism as it has emerged in recent decades, and the ways in which wellbeing has become one of its most distinctive registers both as a functional input/component and as an output/consequence. Analysing the situation further, we then articulate the part wellbeing plays in varying forms of flow occurring in this new capitalism; flows of human bodies, information and material resources the new capitalism involves, and expressive whole onflow the new capitalism creates. The paper closes with our thoughts on the promises and perils of wellbeing under conditions of the new accelerationist, affective capitalism, and for researchers engaging it.

Keywords

• New capitalism
• Wellbeing
• Posthumanism
• Non-representational theory
• Flow
• Whole onflow