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14. Yoga’s Flexibility in Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic


 
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1. Title Title of document 14. Yoga’s Flexibility in Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion
 
2. Creator Author's name, affiliation, country Gustavo Moura; Wilfrid Laurier University; Canada
 
3. Subject Discipline(s) Religious Studies
 
4. Subject Keyword(s) study of religion; religion and politics; religious terms; religious language; categories in religion; social rhetoric; time of crisis; construction of religion
 
5. Subject Subject classification academic study of religion
 
6. Description Abstract Yoga is well-known for its flexibility, which goes much beyond the exotic postures associated with it. In South Asia alone, Yoga’s ideas have a long history of adaptations within Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. More recently these ideas have traveled widely around the world, forming a movement encompassing diverse communities linked through shared practices, values and aspirations under today’s fashionable label ‘yoga’. Based on my recent field observations, I here ask how the Yoga movement is responding to the COVID-19 crisis in Brazil and what lessons we may learn by observing such adaptations and developments. The first part of this paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Brazilian Yoga movement: Is the number of people interested in yoga increasing, and if so, why? How are instructors and practitioners coping with lockdown policies? What strategies have been deployed in the cities, in the ashrams, and within the online space? Above all, how enduring are these adaptations and in what ways could they be reshaping the yoga landscape? The second part of the paper then discusses the nature of this yoga movement asking what is shared with a wider international yoga public and what is peculiar to the Brazilian situation. Also, how is the technology of communication blurring borders and contributing to the already prominent culture of hybridism in Brazil? To address this question, I apply Meredith McGuire’s (2008) approach of “lived religion” with special attention to issues of individual practice and hybridity. Moreover, for the sake of highlighting the experiential nature of yoga as a system of practices, I engage Foucault’s (1982) concept of “technologies of the self”. Finally, I For conference participant use only. Not for reproduction or distribution. Do not cite without permission of the author. NAASR Annual Meeting 2021 reflect on the flavor of yoga in Brazil as Indian ingredients are combined with African and indigenous ones.
 
7. Publisher Organizing agency, location Equinox Publishing Ltd
 
8. Contributor Sponsor(s)
 
9. Date (YYYY-MM-DD) 01-Feb-2025
 
10. Type Status & genre Peer-reviewed Article
 
11. Type Type
 
12. Format File format PDF
 
13. Identifier Uniform Resource Identifier https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/books/article/view/43944
 
14. Identifier Digital Object Identifier 10.1558/equinox.43944
 
15. Source Journal/conference title; vol., no. (year) Equinox eBooks Publishing; Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion
 
16. Language English=en en
 
18. Coverage Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.)
 
19. Rights Copyright and permissions Copyright 2014 Equinox Publishing Ltd