’Being in the Zone’ of Cultural Work

In the cultural industries, workers surrender themselves to ultra-intensive work\udpatterns in order to be recognised as properly creative subjects. In its more affirmative\udversions, there is a recurrent idea that captures that special moment of creative\udsynthesis between the ever-striving worker and the work – the moment of\ud‘being in the zone’. Being in the zone (hereafter BITZ) describes the ideal fusion\udof the intensively productive mind and the labouring body. But what precisely is\udthis ‘zone’, and what is its’ potential? As part of a wider project examining exemplary\udand intensified subjectivity, in this article I examine BITZ from different\udperspectives. The main aim is to contrast affirmative readings of BITZ (mostly\udderived from ‘positive’ social psychology) with other, more critical perspectives\udthat would seek to politicise the conditions of its emergence and examine its range\udof social effects. The overall aim of the article is therefore to suggest the kinds of\udsocial and cultural frameworks that might facilitate exploration of the political\udpotential of BITZ in different kinds of empirical context.Peer-reviewedPublisher Versio