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.