Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the body of the yogi, his physical practice and how yoga is taught. To follow, it analyses who is a yogi raj, a haṭha yogi and a yogi in the ascetic context to deal then with the idea of Yoga and self. Eventually, a confrontation with modern yoga practitioners is made.

Paper long abstract:

While the globalisation of yoga has led several studies to look at its various manifestations and developments, few have addressed their attention towards the practice of traditional ascetics in India. In this paper - based on ethnographic research among Hindu ascetic practitioners of yoga in India- I will deal with the body of the yogi and his/her physical practice of yoga. Initially, I will identify who is generally the yoga practitioner among ascetics and how yoga is taught among them. Then, I will describe the conditions in which yogāsana are practiced and why, to give also examples of further uses of the body describing some austerities (tapasyā). In this way, according to the practices performed, I will identify who is a yogi raj, a haṭha yogi and a yogi in the Hindu ascetic context. This will lead us to deal with the idea of Yoga and self, understood as the inner self or the ātman, a reality that goes behind the identification with phenomena, and has the same nature of God (the Parmātman).

These issues will be used to create a confrontation with modern yoga practitioners and practices with the aims to fill the gap between various modern studies and representations of yoga and the inner representation of yoga by Hindu ascetics.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the socio-political history of globalised prāṇāyāma at the turn of the nineteenth century, proposing that the various methodologies that abounded in the self-help literature of the day function to delineate an embodied, moral orthopraxis of breathing for modern men and women.

Paper long abstract:

Although it is often presented as a universal, natural and fundamentally a-historical human activity, prāṇāyāma is, like āsana, a physical, embodied practice of yoga that inscribes the practitioner in a nexus of culturally and socially specific meaning. Taking as its conversation partner Nile Green's 2008 article on the 'political economy of [yogic] breathing' among yogis and Sufis in colonial India (entitled 'Breathing in India, c.1890'), this paper attempts to analyze the historicity of prāṇāyāma practice as it was transmitted and taught outside of India from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. The paper will examine the place of prāṇāyāma in the wider context of 'mystical breathing' in turn-of-the-century Europe and America, proposing that the various methodologies that abounded in the (yogic) self-help literature of the day function to delineate an embodied, moral orthopraxis of breathing for modern men and women, encoding and enacting specific orientations and attitudes towards this world and the next. The paper will examine prāṇāyāma's role in the performance of health and vitality in early twentieth-century physical culturism; its transformation into a method of 'aspirational breathing', particularly within popular positive-thought movements; its assimilation into the metaphysical frameworks of contemporary western esotericism; and its popularity as a method for the acquisition of extraordinary powers, such as superhuman strength, prognostication and clairvoyance. Each of these contexts help to illuminate the particular social, political and economic history of prāṇāyāma within contemporary, globalised yoga.

Paper short abstract:

Based on extensive field research at a school in southern India, I discuss students' responses to a pervasive threat of "deethicalization" by which the poses (asana) they perform are reduced to "mere" physical exercise.

Paper long abstract:

Students at a yoga school in southern India learn physically demanding sequences of asana (posture, pose) which they conceptualize as tools with which to cultivate inner qualities. While these techniques of the self are specified in great detail, the end to which students' efforts are directed is understood in various ways and seems ultimately indeterminate. This ethical project is, in comparison with others, strong on technique but weak on telos. As a consequence, techniques of asana become vulnerable to a kind of "deethicalization" in which they are 'bleached' of their spiritual content and reduced to mere physical exercise. Based on extensive field research at a school in southern India, in this presentation I discuss responses to this pervasive threat of "deethicalization" and the sense in which it can be understood in relation to processes of commodification and the incorporation of yoga into neo-liberal forms of self-governance. The process of deethicalization is similar, though not quite identical to what Mahmood (2012[2005]) describes as 'the folklorization of worship' in her ethnography of an Egyptian piety movement. One might also think of protestant reform as a response to a perceived deethicalization of the practices of worship in the European middle ages (Weber 1958 [1904-1905], Keane 2007). Generally, it seems, wherever techniques are isolable and detachable from the larger ethical projects within which they are understood to operate, the semiotic process of deethicalization is possible.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents preliminary results of research that attempts to describe the skeletal experiences of yoga practitioners in western Canada. Although yoga is a vehicle to embodied experiences the skeleton remains excluded from discourses of embodiment outside of injury and pathology.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropological research has examined the ways in which we live and experience our bodies as part of how we are in the world (cf. Csordas 1994, 1990; Merleau-Ponty 2007). In comparison with fleshed bodies, skeletons, as foundational aspects of living, breathing corporeality, have remained under-theorised and under-examined as essential aspects of how we perceive our everyday lives. How, then, can we get at the lived experiences of the human skeleton? Building on fieldwork conducted in yoga studios in a mid-sized city in western Canada, I will present preliminary results of research conducted with yoga practitioners that attempts to describe skeletal) experiences. Yoga, as it is mainly used in the western world, is a physical health practice that involves a varied sequence of movements designed to bring awareness to the body (Desikachar, Bragdon, & Bossart 2005). Using observations, interviews and body maps, I will propose that, although yoga is a vehicle to embodied experiences, these experiences still exclude the skeleton from discourses of embodiment outside of injury and pathology.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing from online memoirs of Ashtanga teacher/practitioners, this paper discusses structural elements of Ashtanga practice and accreditation as influences on narratives of self-transformation and suggests that Ashtanga also offers a microcosm for examining aspects of healing through yoga.

Paper long abstract:

I examine yoga as a tool for self-transformation as depicted in online memoirs of authorised/certified Ashtanga teacher/practitioners located around the world. Ashtanga yoga comprises linked, set sequences of asana, distinct from other yoga forms through its emphasis on self-practice, routine, and the student/teacher relationship. A dominant theme of these narratives concerns the healing effects on body and mind of this disciplined system. A majority of practitioner-teachers report pre-Ashtanga experiences of psychological and physical suffering: stress and anxiety, addictions, eating disorders, traumatic emotional events, and near-fatal or seriously debilitating medical conditions or accidents. Their accounts depict this intensely physical practice as a route to recovery and mental balance, sometimes depicted as 'coming home' to oneself. Healing is understood to arise via a mind-body connection enabled by co-ordinating breath and focused attention in regular postural practice. The narratives also reveal how the teacher-student relationship, depicted in terms of parampara or lineage, determines a student's progression in their practice, with authorisation to teach bestowed only after the student has travelled, often numerous times, to study 'at the source' in Mysore, South India. While these structural elements of Ashtanga practice and accreditation contribute to shaping these narratives of self-transformation, Ashtanga offers a microcosm for studying narratives of healing through yoga. The trope of 'wounded healer' is evident not only within but also outside the online Ashtanga community, in blogs, Instagram, Facebook, and memoirs by popular and celebrity yoga teacher practitioners.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, yoga narratives and practices are considered in their capacity to contribute and relate to a particular health imaginary. Shedding light on various elements in this health imaginary will help us reconsider the category of (modern) postural yoga itself.

Paper long abstract:

Many people take up yoga for the sake of their health, to 'energize' their body or to find relief from physical ailments. Learning the correct performance of a posture is usually accompanied by some knowledge of its respective therapeutic benefits. This process also encourages a particular view of physical and mental wellbeing, the embodied self, and health and individual agency.

In this paper, I will consider these discourses in their capacity to contribute and relate to a particular health imaginary. This is not to question the efficacy of respective strands of yoga therapy. From the angle of medical anthropology, health is not an objective category but contingent on social and cultural influences. In this respect, health always interlinks measurable, naturalized and imaginary aspects.

Based on two case studies from Indian and German contexts, I will show how yoga narratives and practices evoke particular self-care subjectivities. It will be argued that similar posture routines may convey contrasting body concepts, treatment logics and notions of wellbeing. Moreover, shedding light on various elements in this health imaginary will help us reconsider the category of (modern) postural yoga itself.

Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the social and philosophical construct of the "yoga body" as a potential locus for critiquing the dichotomous mind-body hierarchy dominant in academia, and works towards developing an embodied methodology for thoughtful and sustainable scholarship.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I address the paralleled dualities of the "yoga body" and the oft-invisible "academic" body. While the institution of the higher learning so often touts the privilege of living the "life of the mind," a growing body of literature addresses realities of embodied cognition, and the potential for deeper, more creative learning achieved through the engagement of physicality of the body. (Claxton, 2015; Berila, 2015) I began my exploration of this idea based on my own challenging, and physically injurious, experience in the high-pressure last stages of dissertation writing, and my subsequent recovery through a dedicated yoga practice. This transition laid bare the lived mind-body dichotomy that had governed my educational experience, even as my art historical research focussed on representations of the traumatized body. While yoga is promulgated as a mode of self-realization and empowerment more broadly within health and wellness spheres, the marketability of the "yoga body" is often rooted aesthetic prescriptions — a dichotomy that mimics the disjointed nature of a conception academic work as residing solely in the realm of the intellect. I work towards the potential the mutual reframing of the "academic body" and the "yoga body" as a way to reveal the structured binaries that often govern both, and ultimately argue for a pedagogical approach that works towards the deconstruction of the passively embraced mind-body dichotomy of the academe in order to lay the ground for more empathetic and resilient intellectual practice.

Paper short abstract:

Often perceived as 'nice stretching' that allows middle and upper class people to demonstrate their social status through fashionable yoga clothes and comfortable yoga mats, among women with average incomes attending small fitness clubs on Warsaw's periphery yoga is becoming a therapeutic practice.

Paper long abstract:

Often perceived as 'nice stretching' that allows middle and upper class people to demonstrate their status through fashionable yoga clothes and comfortable yoga mats, among women with average incomes attending small fitness clubs on Warsaw's periphery yoga is becoming a therapeutic practice. It helps these women cope with everyday difficulties and is also a means of curing serious illnesses or supporting an interest in a healthy lifestyle. These women value not only the physical side of yoga but also try to investigate its additional aspects such as breathing exercises and guided relaxations which they often perceive as meditation practices. All these aspects of yoga, in their opinion, need verification through discussing the effects of practice and its influence on women's physical and mental health. At the same time, these women carefully separate, for themselves, the religious from the non-religious components of yoga and this rendering of yoga as purely secular allows them to remain faithful Catholic believers. Through detailed analysis of these aspects, the paper presents preliminary results of my research, as an anthropologist and yoga teacher, among women in the Warsaw area.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on an auto-ethnography of a two year yoga teacher training, and ethnographic interviews with other trainees, this paper gives a phenomenological analysis of the embodied transformation of self that characterises becoming a yoga teacher as a particular kind of rite of passage.

Paper long abstract:

What propositions about 'the self' are central to yoga philosophy and practice? How are these philosophies embodied in practice and passed down through particular kinds of pedagogical techniques in certain kind of lineage formations between teachers and students? What particular combination of embodied, inter-subjective and materially mediated relations characterise the teacher training process and the practice of yoga as a physical discipline? How does the novice teacher trainee emerge as a particular kind of transformed person as the outcome of their training?

This paper draws on auto-ethnography and ethnographic interviews with other novice yoga teachers, and their instructors, to explore what the learning journey towards becoming a yoga teacher means in terms of the transformation of the self. The paper situates contemporary yoga teaching practice as a mainstream concern of modern Western life in one of London's most successful and commercially viable studios. The paper therefore makes possible an interrogation of the consequences for the yoga tradition of its articulation with the forces of globalisation and capitalism. What does this articulation mean for the paths that different yoga teachers take as they navigate the terrain of an ethical practice at a particular moment in the UK of growing environmental, social and political/economic crisis?

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in France, this paper explores the transmission of yoga as an experience of body-self connection and transformation in 3 modern yoga styles - Bikram, Forrest and Iyengar - that differ in philosophy and form as much as in their history, circulation and reception.

Paper long abstract:

In the past decade, a new wave of US-born yoga styles has hit France, drastically reshaping both the general perception of yoga in this country and its underlying economy and sociology.

While such styles explicitly mention the very localised -even individualised - context of their genesis and detail the rationale of their re-interpretation of (traditional) yoga (philosophy and practice) into an adapted modern western experience, they implicitly construe the 'West' to be a homogeneous cultural unit. In other words, that experience is construed as directly translatable and equally adapted throughout the 'West', irrespective of the epistemological and sociological frames of reference they are being transplanted into.

This paper will explore what is lost and what is found in the translation of two such US-born, second-wave yoga styles - Bikram and Forrest yogas - in relation to body-self connection and self-realisation, as they meet a new audience in France. These styles will be contrasted against the discourses and representations circulating in an Iyengar circle of practice, which is a more established yoga brand in the country, both first-wave and indian-labeled. Drawing on participant observation ethnographic fieldwork and on the imagined worlds of yoga circulating in the french media, I will focus on how body-self connection and transformation are articulated both linguistically and experientially in transmission (by teachers and media), and in reception (by practicioners).

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the methodological challenges of research investigating the potential transformation of the self through the creation of a Yoga body among refugee women. The refugee women are enrolled on Yoga courses in Sweden.

Paper long abstract:

It is well documented in the West that Yoga is experiencing a boom (Yoga Journal 2016) Recent research also highlights that Yoga is practised mainly by women (Merskin, 2012). The Yoga body that graces the front page of popular Western Yoga magazines showcases the strength and transformative power of white women, who are often performing visually striking advanced poses in fashionable Yoga clothes (Dolezal, 2012).

Yet, images of the white, fashionably attired Yoga body are often not representative of the broader, global Yoga community. This is Yoga is conceptualised within a narrow socio-cultural context. There is limited research about the practice and experience of Yoga among specific groups of women, such refugee women to Europe who have encountered systematic oppression associated with and related to war, conflict and refugee status.

This paper documents the experience of a group of predominately Syrian refugee women enrolled on Swedish Yoga courses. I faced many challenges in devising a research methodology able to document and do justice to the experience of refugee women. The paper's methodological aim is to explore how Syrians who are female, refugee and Muslim define and experience transformation through their Yogic body. It will contribute to the growing body of research of Yoga as a transformative practice through Muslim Syrian refugee women's experience of Yoga.

I will present the challenges of developing a research methodology that aims to capture both the verbal experience of Yoga and the non-verbal often subconscious experience of the Yoga courses.

Paper short abstract:

This paper situates yoga within a greater evolution of wellness practices in the neoliberal era. Drawing on ethnographic encounters in households in the US, the paper proposes that yoga can help facilitate intimate relations within the home.

Paper long abstract:

The rise in individualised wellness practices since the 1980s—including fitness, 'healthy' eating, and mindfulness—is arguably linked to the neoliberal expectation that the self must be fit enough to adapt to the increasingly privitised political economy. Using ethnographic data from middle class households in Providence, RI, this paper situates yoga within larger middle class wellness practices that have surged in this era. Within this ethnographic context, yoga is a somewhat unique practice that links the 'fit' body to a sense of greater mindful or spiritual wellness. Yoga emerges as a site for empowerment and dissent within the neoliberal social order without wholly rejecting the era's demand for self-discipline. This paper argues that one of the overlooked facets of this dissent is the embodied relationality of yoga, particularly within domestic encounters. In several of the households studied, yoga emerged as a unifying relational encounter, linking participants not so much to their inner selves or yoga communities, but rather to their spouses and children. Yoga is presented as a backstage bodily practice of domestic space that helps bridge the gap between the concurrent need for solitude and familial intimacy in an individualist society.