59. What is the Relationship between Race and Yoga?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Sheena Sood [+]
Delaware Valley University
Sheena Sood, PhD is a Philadelphia-based sociologist, writer, educator, and yoga
teacher. Her research, “Omwashing Yoga: Weaponized Spirituality in India, Israel, and the
US,” investigates the growing incorporation of yoga and mindfulness by far-right law
enforcement, military, and vigilante groups. Sheena is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has written for Jadaliyya, Race & Yoga Journal, and Colorlines. As an activist scholar, Sheena brings her research into praxis by curating “Decolonizing Yoga” workshops that challenge attendees to reckon with both yoga’s oppressive layers and liberatory potential. She is also the founder of Yoga Warrior Tales, an interactive adventure-based educational program that teaches children yoga and mindfulness through a social justice lens.
Description
While yoga is popularly regarded as a practice that promotes physical and spiritual well-being, access to its healing properties is often stratified by interlocking categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality. A range of social and systemic theories of race and colonialism can help conceptualise the relationship between race and yoga.