Re-creating ontological security: Flow and optimal experience

Abstract This article utilises the work of the late Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and his concept of ‘flow’ or optimal experience, to re-theorise ontological security as a process. Explored through empirical contexts where flow has already been applied or could be, such as in elite decision-making or soldiers in combat, the article not only situates flow as a contrast to other accounts of the subject but also suggests that flow has been part of subject formation in global politics for some time and deserves attention for its creative promises.