The Whitewashing of Yoga

Text by Lisa Hannen (University of Münster)

Art by Moxi

This essay explores the transformation of yoga from a complex spiritual and philosophical practice in South Asia to a commodified global wellness product. By tracing yoga’s historical trajectory and situating its Western adaptations within colonial legacies, I aim to examine how practices of cultural appropriation and commodification shape what yoga has become today. Drawing on anthropological debates, I discuss how yoga’s commercialization both obscures its Indian roots and reproduces power imbalances, while at the same time also creating spaces of resistance, healing, and reclamation among practitioners of color and South Asian communities. Placing my own experiences of practicing yoga in contemporary consumer contexts at the center, I reflect on the ethical questions of participation, cultural appreciation, and responsibility. Ultimately, this essay seeks to engage critically with yoga as both an expression of colonial domination and a potential site of decolonial practice.

In the modern fitness landscape, yoga has become unavoidable. Everyone has heard of it, and everyone has a concept of what it describes. One could even have attended a yoga class before; I know I have. I have always enjoyed the calm it brings me, and I have always felt more connected to myself after practicing what I call yoga. Not long ago I met with a friend to participate in a course of a popular gym franchise near me. The trainer brought her own music to accompany the exercises and at first it was just soft background sound, but when she announced that we would do the 'warrior pose' next, the music became more intense, and we heard what I assume was supposed to sound like indigenous chanting accompanied by drums and flutes. My friend and I were taken aback by the teacher’s presumably intentional music choice and the lack of general reaction to it. We felt very uncomfortable because, as we discussed later, from our knowledge alone we felt yoga already had a colonial background but to intentionally accompany the yoga practice with what is thought to be traditional music of indigenous peoples, and so create a wild mix of everything that could be perceived as traditional and spiritual as if it were derived from the same culture or had any connection to each other, and appropriate it into a consumerist context, left us perplexed. Together we went to our yoga teacher after the course had ended and approached her to share our thoughts with her. Of course, she did not have ill intentions and wanted to know more about why we thought the music choice would have been inappropriate. We were left wondering if yoga classes in general are considered cultural appropriation and if so, if the ethical conclusion for us was to stop practicing yoga as to not reproduce colonial power relations. So I decided to read more about this topic.

The origins of yoga can be traced back to India up to 5000 years ago (Thompson-Ochoa 2019, 34). It is a complex spiritual and philosophical practice consisting of different kinds of exercises which were taught by a guru who has studied the art of yoga (Fish 2014, 443). The original goal of this practice was to train one’s mind to achieve spiritual enlightenment (Thompson-Ochoa 2019, 34 et seq.). Yoga has never been a concise set of fixed exercises, but always differed and evolved in practice depending on historical and geographical context (Fish 2014, 458). Before yoga became popular in the west, it had apparently withered into a kind of “grandmother’s practice” to the youth of India of the twentieth century (Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012, 48). According to several reports, the western societies caught on to the practice after guru Vivekananda presented his yogic exercises at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012, 47). From that point on, yoga was taken to western countries, and its components were handpicked to fit the western consumer’s demand. This process of translating foreign traditions in one’s own culture is in itself an expression of power as one decides what parts of the practice are important and which are not (Fish 2014, 448). What is widely understood as yoga nowadays is only part of traditional yoga. Traditionally, yoga practice consists of different parts, such as the “asana (postures), pranayama (breath control),[...] dhyana (meditation)[...] yama (observations), niyama (abstentions), pratyahara (abstraction), dharana (concentration), and samadhi (enlightenment as a state of being)” (ibid, 454). In contrast, westernized yoga mostly practices postures, often meditation and sometimes breath control. According to Kenneth Tupper, “[...] the taking – from a culture that is not one’s own – of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge” (Tupper 2009 as cited in Thompson-Ochoa 2019, 35) is called cultural appropriation. Danielle Thompson-Ochoa adds to this definition the element of modifying the taken element according to consumer interests (Thompson-Ochoa 2019, 35). In a more practical and contextualized manner, Rina Deshpande describes cultural appropriation as “[...] the taking, marketing, and exotification of cultural practices from historically oppressed populations” and as “soft for racism and European colonialism” (Deshpande 2021). With these definitions in mind, we ask the question: Is commercial yoga cultural appropriation?

We clearly see the described elements in the global yoga market: since western societies discovered yoga for themselves, the practice has been detached from its philosophical origins and mostly condensed to its purely physical exercises. Even though it is also associated with spirituality and stress relief nowadays, yoga is largely marketed as a form of exercise and modified according to the “contemporary mindscape of healthism” and “cult of performance towards the optimization of bodily performance” (Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012, 48). In addition to grievances that are inherent to the global commercial yoga complex, several problems arise related to the power dynamic between formerly colonized India and the western countries.

The commodification of yoga – referring to taking the practice, marketing it to global consumers, and profiting from it – means turning an intangible cultural phenomenon into a commercial object. Since yoga has traditionally been free of cost, this process of commodification marks another detachment from its original value. Today, global yoga has become a huge industry which generates profit from activities such as yoga classes, teacher training, yoga gear and so on. Ana Regina Coronado also describes how yoga centres and schools are often established in emerging countries to cut costs, which adds another dimension of power imbalance and exploitation (Coronado 2020). In a study by Johanna Fish, a friend of an informant is cited as saying about sharing yogic knowledge in the west: “you have to charge money or else nobody will believe you know something” (Fish 2014, 447). This quote illustrates that, by taking part in the global economy, one has to assume its customs imposed by Western societies, in a way speaking the according language. In this case, that means altering one’s perspective on the own cultural practices to align with the appropriating forces, revealing a clear power dynamic. Indigenous peoples are being forced to turn their culture into tangible resources to be able to capitalize off it, otherwise they risk exploitation. An interesting example is the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library in India, where Indian government officials record and manage Indian cultural practices, as to protect them against foreign property claims (ibid: 440 et seq.).

Through the banning of the Indian roots of yoga and the presence of Indian people  within the western yoga industry are often rendered invisible. This happens, for example, by banning Eastern symbols and language from yoga practice, as well as the industry’ predominance of white practitioners and leaders (Deshpande 2021). Lakshmi Nair comments about this phenomenon: “you know your superpower of invisibility is on point when a billion of you go unnoticed” (Nair 2019, 34). She goes on to report about her experiences with ignorance, xenophobia, and blatant racism in the yoga industry in several instances. Her and many others’ reports lead to the assessment that, in addition to the power difference within the appropriation within the global yoga industrya, the commodification and appropriation of yoga are actively harming people of colour (e.g. Deshpande 2021; Lakshmi 2019; Roth 2023).

Modifying traditional yoga into modern global yoga has made it more popular than ever. Even in India, the birthplace of the yoga practice, it is being practiced widely again. However, the practice that is currently most popular with Indian youth is the westernized and commercialized yoga, therefore a traditional cultural expression has been taken from its culture of origin, modified to a consumer standard, and detached from its philosophical roots and fed back into the culture it was originally derived from. Soren Askegaard and Giana Eckhardt call this a “symbol of western domination” (Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012, 51) and of “western hegemony” (ibid, 54). They refer to how US-American yoga teachers come to India to teach yoga there, a diluted version of itself(ibid, 53 et seq.). As an interim conclusion it would be appropriate to call westernized yoga cultural appropriation according to several standards.

Beyond this assessment, there are other complex dimensions to modern yoga. Notably, there are reports of yoga spaces fostering healthy, productive, and peaceful environments. For example, Nair describes a yoga group she founded to train other people of colour in yoga, providing a space for exchanging experiences and, most importantly, healing from trauma using yogic methodologies (Nair 2019, 37 et seq.). Similarly, Sheila Batacharya discusses a yoga group composed exclusively of South Asian women of colour, which addresses racial violence and oppression while utilizing exchange and a yogic framework as a “counterhegemonic healing strategy” (Batacharya 2018, 162). Sammy Roth also describes how “black women utilize yoga to resist these norms inside and outside yoga spaces” (Roth 2023, 5). In this way, there might be an opportunity within yogic practices to refurbish colonialist power relations and racist conditions. Additionally, Askegaard and Eckhardt describe the concept of “auto-orientalist yoga” (Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012, 54), according to which Indian people can use yoga practice to gain access to their cultural heritage and reclaiming their culturally marked identity using “globally recognized signifiers of Indian tradition“ (ibid, 54) like yoga and in this process regain autonomy and power over their cultural property. The authors express that yoga can be seen as both “an expression of (post-)colonial domination or an anti-colonialist resistance” (ibid, 55).

As to what one can individually do in a Western society to decolonialize one’s yoga practice, Anna Schmidt-Oehm (2021) suggests reading and gathering information about the history of yoga and its cultural backgrounds. In addition, Deshpande states that “[i]t’s not about appreciation versus appropriation. It’s about understanding the role of power and the legacies of imperialism” (Deshpande 2021, What is Cultural Appropriation?). She suggests that cultural appreciation needs active dealing with colonial history and the global power dynamics which persist today, as well as being aware of the colonial implications of how yoga has come to be performed and marketed in Western societies.

Regarding the question concerning Western citizens practicing yoga, Shreena Gandhi and Lillie Wolff write: “To the so many white people who practise yoga, please don’t stop, but please do take a moment to look outside of yourself and understand how the history of yoga practice in the United States is intimately linked to some of the larger forces of white supremacy” (Gandhi and Wolff 2021).

References

Askegaard, Soren, and Giana M. Eckhardt. 2012. “Glocal Yoga: Re-appropriation in the Indian consumptionspace.” Marketing Theory 12 (1): 45-60.

Batacharya, Sheila. 2018. “Resistance and Remedy Through Embodied Learning: Yoga

Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Appropriate Services.” In Sharing Breath: Embodied Learning and Decolonization, edited by Sheila Batacharya and Yuk-Lin Wong. Athabasca University Press.

Coronado, Ana Regina. 2020. “Exploitation Yoga: 5 ways the Modern Yoga Industry stimulate

a profit engine through yoga teacher trainings.” Medium, June 5 2020. https://medium.com/@anareginacoronado/exploitation-yoga-c2146c2783ea.

Deshpande, Rina. 2021. “What’s the Difference Between Cultural Appropriation and Cultural

Appreciation? A first generation Indian-American yoga and mindfulness researcher and teacher reflects on what feels misrepresented and appropriative to her in modern yoga.” yoga journal, last modified October 10, 2021. https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/yoga-

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Fish, Johanna. 2014. “Authorizing Yoga: The Pragmatics of Cultural Stewardship in the

Digital Era.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal 8 (4): 439-460.

Gandhi, Shreena and Lillie Wolff. 2021. “Yoga and the Roots of Cultural Appropriation.” trauma sensitive yoga nederland, April 23, 2021. https://www.traumasensitiveyoganederland.com/yoga-and-the-roots-of-cultural-appropriation/.

Nair, Lakshmi. 2019. “When Even Spirit Has No Place to Call Home: Cultural Appropriation,

Microaggressions, and Structural Racism in the Yoga Workplace.” Race and Yoga 4 (1): 33-38.

Roth, Sammy. 2023. “Reigniting Race and Yoga: An Open Issue “in the Wake” of Ongoing

Crises.” Race and Yoga 7 (1): 1-9.

Schmidt-Oehm, Anna. 2021. “Cultural Appropriation in Yoga and the importance for teachers in Western societies to look at it.” yoginzky, July 4, 2022. https://www.yoginzky.de/post/cultural appropriation-in-yoga-and-the-importance-for-

teachers-in-western-societies-to-look-at-it.

Thompson-Ochoa, Danielle. 2019. “Is yoga cultural appropriation?” Yoga Mimamsa 51 (1): 34-37.