Yoga and White Public Space

Abstract

This article connects recent work in critical race studies, museum studies, and performance studies to larger conversations happening across the humanities and social sciences on the role of performance in white public spaces. Specifically, I examine the recent trend of museums such as the Natural History Museum of London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to name but a few, offering meditation and wellness classes that purport to “mirror the aesthetics or philosophy of their collections.” Through critical ethnography and discursive analysis I examine and unpack this logic, exposing the role of cultural materialism and the residue of European imperialism in the affective economy of the museum. I not only analyze the use of sound and bodily practices packaged as “yoga” but also interrogate how “yoga” cultivates a sense of space and place for museum-goers. I argue that museum yoga programs exhibit a form of somatic orientalism, a sensory mechanism which traces its roots to U.S. American cultural-capitalist formations and other institutionalized forms of racism. By locating yoga in museums within broader and longer processes of racialization I offer a critical race and feminist lens to view these sorts of performances.

Rückenschmerzen und erhöhtes Bandscheibenvorfallrisiko bei Astronauten während und nach Raumfahrtmissionen

“…Rückenschmerzen sind ein häufiges medizinisches Problem der Astronauten. In der Shuttle-Ära waren diese Schmerzen der fünfthäufigste Grund für die Einnahme von Medikamenten 5 , 6 . Auch heute noch sind Rückenschmerzen ein Problem der Astronauten an Bord der Internationalen Raumstation (ISS) 7 .…”

Politics of coalition at Standing Rock

“…The 'other' functions as a strategic location for power available for Westerners to appropriate, identify, and express subjectivity, while ignoring or justifying unequal power relations (Said 1978). Yoga functions as a form of somatic Orientalism in which a racialized dynamic is cultivated through a range of sensory experiences (Putcha 2020). US yoga culture is rooted in "a history of white supremacy and paternalism, stemming from British imperialism and colonialism in South Asia" (Putcha 2020:8).…”