Essay: White Womanhood, Hindutva and Spiritual Bypass; Museum Yoga & the Mass Participation Spectacle
The following recording was produced for The Jugaad Project. It was extracted from chapter 1/2 of the full thesis, entitled:
‘Is Yoga in Museums a Reactive Response to Neoliberal Capitalist Ideology? In Light of This, Can its Care-giving Potential be Recovered?‘
Chapter 1 outlines the role of museums today.
This is foregrounded with an explanation of yoga philosophy and its evolution towards postural yoga. I detail how the baby boomer generation become disenchanted with the world and how this led to an individualised pursuit of the self. I explain how the mass yoga spectacle serves as a religious encounter, for new age audiences. This international network affiliation or membership to the ‘yoga tribe’ is maintained through retail consumption within the neoliberal framework apparatus. Steve Bruce explains participants of yoga in western secular societies as a ‘cultic milieu’.
Chapter 2 interrogates ‘Neoliberal Yoga’ .
The nature of yoga in museums was discussed in Chapter1. As Bruce Davidson (2021) exclaims ‘Why are they doing this?’. In this chapter, museum-yoga is explained within the context of socially engaged practice. First, I focus on instrumentalist approaches which are driven by museum-agendas. I then turn towards relational methods of critical practice. Neoliberal yoga which prioritises the wellness of individual bodies is contrasted against collaborative processes which promote education, discourse and critical reflection.
This chapter provides an alternative vision for museum yoga to move towards praxis which provides space for critical and dialogical engagement, via a case study of Berlin-based, South Indian Dalit artist, Sajan Mani’s ‘Political Yoga’ project. This ongoing artistic research and performance project investigates how globalised yoga and meditation practices reproduce social, cultural, and geopolitical power structures. Mani’s performance piece critiques how Indian nationalist politics utilise yoga as a tool for cultural diplomacy and soft power, which can mask the systemic oppression and marginalisation of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and other minorities in India.
Content warning: suicide, self harm