''Positioning Yoga: balancing acts across cultures'' is a 2005 book of

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

by Sarah Strauss about the history of modern

yoga as exercise Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has ...

, focusing on the example of Sivananda Yoga.

Book

Context

Yoga as exercise Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has ...

is an international practice, specially widespread in the English-speaking world, using yoga postures (

asana An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga ...

s) for fitness and health.

Yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

originated in India, where it takes many forms, often entirely without the use of asanas. Sarah Strauss is a professor of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

at the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...

, where she states that one of her "ongoing research goals is to understand how different cultures define what it means to be healthy and to live a 'good life'."

Synopsis

Yoga came from India, but how did it change from the solitary practice of Indian mystics to a Western urban method of exercise? Strauss tells the story of modern yoga, starting with

Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introd ...

's appearance at Chicago's 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions. She shows how yoga changed as it traversed between cultures and historical contexts. She examines in detail Sivananda of Rishikesh's Divine Life Society and its yoga practitioners from different countries.

Publication history

''Positioning Yoga'' was published in hardcover by

Berg Publishers Berg Publishers was an academic publishing company based in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England and Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It was founded in the United Kingdom in 1983 by Marion Berghahn. Berg published monographs, textbooks, referen ...

of Oxford and New York in 2005.

Illustrations

The book is illustrated with 10 figures, mostly monochrome photographs by the author. One figure is an outline map of India, and another shows a 200 Rupee postage stamp commemorating Sivananda seated by the river Ganges at

Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in Dehradun district of the Indian state Uttarakhand. It is situated on the right bank of the Ganges River and is a pilgrimage town for Hindus, with ancient sages and saints meditati ...

Reception

The yoga scholar Mark Singleton describes the book as a "study of the 'transnational' yoga teachings of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh", based on Strauss's

fieldwork Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fie ...

in India. He calls the book "less critically aware .. of modern yoga's dialectical relationship with tradition than either

Alter Alter may refer to: * Alter (name), people named Alter * Alter (automobile) * Alter (crater), a lunar crater * Alter Channel, a Greek TV channel * Archbishop Alter High School, a Roman Catholic high school in Kettering, Ohio * ALTER, a comman ...

or De Michelis." The yoga scholar

Suzanne Newcombe Suzanne Newcombe researches the modern history of yoga and new and minority religions. She states that she is particularly interested in "the interfaces between religion, health and healing." She is known in particular for her work on yoga for women ...

, in her account ''The Revival of Yoga in Contemporary India'', writes that Strauss argues that "Sivananda's injunctions to 'Serve, Love, Meditate, Realise' roughly parallel

's four paths of yoga." The scholar of Hinduism notes that Strauss argues that "the practice of yoga is a quest for wellness—a combination of well-being and fitness—in order to reach an authentic Self, healthy in every sense of the word." Broo contrasts this with the early modern Romantic quest for self-development as an adult, stating that the yoga quest involves "a continual sense of self-making, with no end in sight." Broo notes also that Strauss "calls yoga a form of

embodied knowledge Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract, and thus more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This ...

, which no amount of reading can impart." The scholar of religion Mark Eaton writes that Strauss's argument in the book depends on her concept of an "oasis regime", where yoga practitioners use yoga to "escape from the demands of their daily lives". In his view, seeing Sivananda yoga as an oasis is "certainly an optimistic perspective". The anthropologist reviewed the book for ''Current Anthropology'', noting that before it and Joseph Alter's 2004 ''Yoga in Modern India'' there had been a "striking" absence of detailed studies of "non-Western movements" such as modern yoga. The anthropologist Olga Demetriou reviewed ''Positioning Yoga'' for ''Social Anthropology''.

References

Sources

* {{Yoga scholars Books about yoga 2005 non-fiction books