Positioning Yoga

by Strauss, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9781859737347
• ISBN10: 185973734X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-02-19
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

What is yoga? Stereotypical images of people practicing this ancient art range from white-bearded Indian mystics chanting 'om' on mountaintops to urban fitness fanatics contorted into uncomfortable looking positions. We recognize the name, but may not realize how the set of ideas and practices known as yoga moved from its birthplace on the Indian subcontinent to become a global phenomenon. Positioning Yoga considers how the recent development of yoga, from its introduction to Western audiences by the Indian Swami Vivekananda at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago through to the present day, has generated specific forms of modern practice. Strauss takes us on an illuminating journey from India to Germany and America, and back again to India. While acknowledging yogas point of origin, Strauss explores how yogic practices and ideas have been transformed when they cross cultural boundaries.Yoga can be defined in many ways as an attitude, a philosophic system, a set of practices, a way of being in the world but its definition is always located within a particular historical context. What makes yoga practitioners affiliated with Swami Sivanandas Divine Life Society of Rishikesh, India - whether they hail from India, North America, or Europe - unique? What values around the world have supported the surging popularity of yoga over the past century? This absorbing book considers how lifestyle values have made yoga a global industry and shows how culture is produced and disseminated across boundaries.

Author Biography

Sarah Strauss is an associate professor, University of Wyoming and is the co-editor of Weather, Climate, Culture (Berg Publishers 2003).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Glossary and Orthographic Note	xiii
"Lineage" of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh	xvii
Preface: A Note to Anthropologists and Interested Others	xix
1 Re-Orienting Yoga	1	(22)
2 Lives and Histories: Rishikesh, Sivananda, and the Divine Life Society	23	(30)
3 Balancing Acts: Doing Yoga in Rishikesh	53	(34)
4 Moving Out: Yoga for a Transnational Community of Practice	87	(28)
5 Yoga: A Global Positioning System	115	(26)
Afterword: Virtual Yoga	141	(4)
Notes	145	(12)
Bibliography	157	(20)
Index	177