Yoga Bodies: Technical, Mindful And Socio-Religious Bodies Reflecting Inequality

This groundbreaking study approaches contemporary yoga through a cultural and social anthropological lens, explicitly weaving together historical perspectives with lived practice.Moving beyond reductionist interpretations, such as Silvia Ceccomori’s influential but limiting account on ha?ha yoga, this book challenges dominant narratives in the French historiography of yoga.Drawing on rich ethnographic research, the author vividly documents the lives and practices of two renowned ha?ha yoga teachers in Paris.Their stories illuminate the diverse ways yoga has been reinterpreted, embodied, and transmitted in modern France, offering fresh insights into the varieties of contemporary yoga.Rejecting the confines of the “classical” Indianist framework, this work situates yoga within a broader global context, where body techniques and religious beliefs intersect and adapt through processes of acculturation.The result is a nuanced account that both critiques earlier approaches and contributes an