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.