SAC presents: Laurah Klepinger-Mathew

Laurah Klepinger-Mathew, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University 

Yoga Bodies and Yoga Land: Spiritual Tourism and the Situation of Globalized Yoga

Gateway to Inner Peace is a promotional video for the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres (SYVC) ashram in Kerala, India. The film emphasizes the power of the landscape, suggesting that place itself can transform experience, allowing visitors to attain peace. Indian teachers also emphasized the power inherent in Indian soil. Yet they drew on notions of substance and inheritance to privilege Indian bodies over foreign ones. This presentation examines this rhetoric and SYVC members’ statements to consider competing claims on globalized yoga.

Open to the public.

Sponsored by the South Asia Center at the moynihan Institute of Global Affairs