By Roopa Singh a Dissertation Pres
How Yoga Became “White:” Yoga Mobilities, Race, and the U.S. Settler Nation (1937-2018) by Roopa Singh A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved June 2019 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Chair Elizabeth Swadener Rimjhim Aggarwal ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY August 2019 ABSTRACT My Critical Yoga Studies investigation maps from the early 20th century to present day how yoga has become white through U.S. law and cultural productions, and has enhanced white privilege at the expense of Indian and people of color bodies. I position Critical Yoga Studies at the intersection of Yoga Studies, Critical Race Theory, Indigenous Studies, Mobilities Studies, and transnational American Studies. Scholars have linked uneven development and racial displacement (Soja, 1989; Harvey, 2006; Gilmore, 2007). How does racist displacement appear in historic and current contexts of development in yoga? In my dissertation, I use yoga mobilities to explain ongoing movements of Indigenous knowledge and wealth from former colonies, and contemporary “Indian” bodies, into the white, U.S. settler nation-state, economy, culture, and body. The mobilities trope provides rich conceptual ground for yoga study, because commodified yoga anchors in corporal movement, sets billions of dollars of global wealth in motion, shapes culture, and fuels complex legal and nation building maneuvers by the U.S. settler state and post-colonial India. Emerging discussions of commodified yoga typically do not consider race and colonialism. I fill these gaps with critical race and Indigenous Studies investigations of yoga mobilities in contested territories, triangulating data through three research sites: (1) U.S.
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