Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change
An Intersectional Feminist Analysis
Contributions by Ariane M. Balizet, Jacoby Ballard, Diana York Blaine, Mary Bunn, Beth S. Catlett, Kimberly Dark, Lauren Eckstrom, Jillian Ford, Thalia González, Marcelle M. Haddix, Carol Horton, Kerrie Kauer, Roopa Kaushik-Brown, Karishma Kripalani, Punam Mehta, Steffany Moonaz, Jennifer Musial, Whitney Myers, Enoch H. Page, Sarah L. Schrank, Maria Velazquez Edited by Beth Berila, Melanie Klein, Chelsea Jackson Roberts
Publication date:
15 September 2018Length of book:
356 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498528047
Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change is the first collection to gather together prominent scholars on yoga and the body. Using an intersectional lens, the essays examine yoga in the United States. as a complex cultural phenomenon that reveals racial, economic, gendered, and sexual politics of the body. From discussions of the stereotypical yoga body to analyses of pivotal court cases, Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change examines the sociopolitical tensions of contemporary yoga.
Because so many yogic spaces reflect the oppressive nature of many other public spheres, the essays in this collection also examine what needs to change in order for yoga to truly live up to its liberatory potential, from the blogosphere around Black women’s health to the creation of queer and trans yoga classes to the healing potential of yoga for people living with chronic illness or trauma.
While many of these conversations are emerging in the broader public sphere, few have made their way into academic scholarship. This book changes all that. The essays in this anthology interrogate yoga as it is portrayed in the media, yoga spaces, and yoga as it is integrated in education, the law, and concepts of health to examine who is included and who is excluded from yoga in the West. The result is a thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and the limitations of yoga for feminist social transformation.
Because so many yogic spaces reflect the oppressive nature of many other public spheres, the essays in this collection also examine what needs to change in order for yoga to truly live up to its liberatory potential, from the blogosphere around Black women’s health to the creation of queer and trans yoga classes to the healing potential of yoga for people living with chronic illness or trauma.
While many of these conversations are emerging in the broader public sphere, few have made their way into academic scholarship. This book changes all that. The essays in this anthology interrogate yoga as it is portrayed in the media, yoga spaces, and yoga as it is integrated in education, the law, and concepts of health to examine who is included and who is excluded from yoga in the West. The result is a thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and the limitations of yoga for feminist social transformation.
Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change invites us into a vibrant conversation about what yoga as a practice of freedom might look like. Drawing on rich narratives and research about yoga’s transnational history, this volume protests attempts to strip mine yoga, to reduce it to a windowless commodity. The book is essential reading for yogis, activists, and scholars who do not want to reinforce white supremacy and other exclusions. A celebration of a vital grassroots movement that honors the human body in all its manifestations, this book illuminates yoga as an act of resistance, a way of creating justice in our many communities.