Making (and Resisting) The Neoliberal Body:An Ethnography of New Postural Yoga

This project aims to explore the lived religious experiences of yoga practitioners in order to rethink the phenomena of neoliberal yoga brands. The methodology will be a reflexive ethnography using 3 immersive case studies of Dharma Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga and Rocket Yoga in Edinburgh and London. This research will contribute to theorising the sociology of religion in neoliberal society through the lens of yogic practices and practitioners. Overall, the thesis situates itself as part of a broader social project to 'decolonise yoga' by challenging the conceptions of commercialised yoga that confirm and/or complicate pre-existing racial, religious and gender hierarchies.Interdisciplinary research is becoming more crucial in modern yoga studies to challenge perennialist assumptions of a single 'authentic' yoga that is true for all times, places and people (Newcombe & O'Brien-Kop, 2020). Foregrounding this challenge,I have identified two key problems within the current literature on new postural yoga. Firstly, there isa narrow and sceptical view of the 'capitalist yogascene'(Jain, 2020; Wildcroft, 2020). This is problematicfor contemporary yoga studies because it fails to account for the postural innovation taking place in response to demands in urban communities, and themeaning-making, cathartic experiences of the practitioners themselves who are the fuel for keeping the classical practices alive and translating them into new contexts. Secondly, there is a limited understanding of contemporary yoga as a practice of lived religion. Studies often fail to consider the shifting contents of yoga, including the stylistic nuances of postural practices, practitioner identities,everyday rituals, communities and shared beliefs (Jain,2014; Lucia 2020). Academic interpretations of these practices are limited because of a lack of insider studies on who its practitioners are, what they do in their practice, and what their experiences mean to them as a form of 'lived religion' (Knibbe & Kupari,2020). Drawing on scholarship from the sociology of lived religion and from reflexive ethnography (e.g Strauss, 2005; Lucia, 2020; Wildcroft, 2020) my thesis aims to address this knowledge gap by studying the religious experiences of contemporary postural yoga practitioners.Following ethical clearance, 12 months of reflexive ethnographic field work will be conducted at yogastudios in Edinburgh and London. My position as a yoga teacher and practitioner with connections in Edinburgh and London offers a unique insider advantage for accessing these networks. Data collection techniques will include videography, co-practice with practitioners, participant observation, reflexive diaries, and in-depth interviews with teachers and practitioners. I will explore data analysis techniques such as notation, collocation analysis, and feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis. These techniques will help to avoid presenting all narratives as 'equal'. Moreover, the thematic interplaybetween typologies, terminologies, methods and sets of ideas will allow for multiple, open-ended readings and analysis (Baxter, 2003). This is important for unravelling tensions in the project of making/resisting 'neoliberal bodies' in yoga practices,which are shaped by complex intersectionalities of race, religion, and gender (Black, 2020). The project will develop novel ways to communicate scholarly knowledge to non-academic audiences. I will create an Instagram account for posting relevant project content as well as host a podcast series to share my research with international yoga communities. I endeavour to apply for additional training skills in videography and film making through the SGSAH network and collaborate with fellow SGSAH doctoral researchers to produce a short film on the project themes.