Yoga Bodies

This groundbreaking study approaches contemporary yoga through a cultural and social anthropological lens, explicitly weaving together historical perspectives with lived practice. Moving beyond reductionist interpretations, such as Silvia Ceccomori’s influential but limiting account on häha yoga, this book challenges dominant narratives in the French historiography of yoga. Drawing on rich ethnographic research, the author vividly documents the lives and practices of two renowned häha yoga teachers in Paris. Their stories illuminate the diverse ways yoga has been reinterpreted, embodied, and transmitted in modern France, offering fresh insights into the varieties of contemporary yoga. Rejecting the confines of the “classical” Indianist framework, this work situates yoga within a broader global context, where body techniques and religious beliefs intersect and adapt through processes of acculturation. The result is a nuanced account that both critiques earlier approaches and contributes an original perspective to the growing field of yoga studies. This book is an essential read for researchers, scholars, and students of anthropology, religious studies, body culture, and modern yoga, this book offers the first sustained ethnographic exploration of häha yoga practice in France, an innovative contribution to understanding yoga as a lived, global phenomenon.