This paper introduces the case study of Odaka Yoga, an innovative style of postural yoga blended with martial arts elements which emphasizes the importance of practitioners' health and processes of self-transformation as pivotal to the school's ethos. More specifically, the paper explores how Odaka Yoga's philosophical backdrops and practical repertoire, composed by a mixture of “exotic” resources such as Bushido, zen, yoga, and a constant reference to the ocean waves and biomechanics, constitute a very specific vision of health at the intersection of Western science and esoteric knowledge. Theoretically, the paper borrows from Jennings' theory of martial creation and enriches it with some of the central analytical tools proposed by theorists such as Bourdieu and Foucault. Methodologically, it relies on a multimodal approach including discursive analysis of the school's promotional materials, interviews with the founders and other key teachers, and observant participation of practitioners' apprenticeship processes. More Specifically, this paper discusses the birth of Odaka Yoga as occurring at the intersection of Asian martial arts and yoga, as well as the founders' biographical trajectories from the world of competitive martial arts and fitness, to yoga; it then turns to an examination of Odaka Yoga's conception of health as a mixture of the Western biomedical model and the subtle body model of Asian traditions such as yoga and martial arts. It argues that the conception of health promoted by this school gives rise to the Odaka Yoga Warrior, the ideal-typical practitioner whose body is simultaneously exposed to the medical gaze and its imperatives of control, knowledge, and manipulation; while it also deifies it, as it is animated by the elusive flows of energy (qi or prana) that prolonged practice aims to master. The paper concludes with a reflection on hybrid conceptions of health and the ubiquitous role of health discourses and narratives across sociocultural domains.

In this paper, I discuss the role of spiritual seekers’ embodiment of karma, jnana and bhakti yoga(s) in the context of a neo-Vedantic, non-monastic ashram located in southern-Europe, an ashram I regard as an example of modern denominational yoga. Methodologically, I rely on an ex-post multi-sensory autoethnography, involving apprenticeship and full participation immersion, and I share with physical cultural studies a commitment to empirically contextualise the study of the moving body. Theoretically, I employ Shilling’s theory of the body as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society, enriched by other theoretical and sensitising concepts. The findings presented in this paper show that the body of the seekers/devotees can be simultaneously framed as the source of, the location for and the means to, the constitution of the social, cultural and spiritual life of the ashram. As I discuss the development, interiorisation and implementation of serving, contemplative and devotional dispositions, which together form the scheme of dispositions that shape a yogic habitus, I also consider the ties between the specific instances under study and the more general spiritual habitus. The paper ends by broadening its focus in relation to the inclusion of Asian practices and traditions into the Western landscape.

The practice of yoga has become an integral part of practitioners’ lifestyles, spirituality and therapeutic paths across the world, not to mention institutional and governmental interventions of a pedagogical, rehabilitative and political nature in settings as diverse as schools, hospitals and prisons. While social science literature has explored some of these areas of analysis, we currently know little about how particular conceptions of health and wellbeing, of the sacred and of the economic-political continuum overlap, diverge and reciprocally influence each other, with reference to yoga and beyond. Using the example of “modern postural yoga”, this article aims to provide a preliminary account of what we term the Health-Spirituality-Neoliberalism Nexus, that is, of the ways in which different “social fields”, such as the medical/therapeutic, the spiritual/religious and the political/economic fields, are partly governed by the same practical-discursive logics and display profound “symbiotic relationships”. More specifically, this article elucidates how specific health discourses, centred around practitioners’ self-care, self-responsibility and self-control, dominate not only the medical/therapeutic field, but also the landscape of contemporary spiritualities and the widespread neoliberal ethos that characterizes the current social, political and economic model of Westernized societies. Here, the categories of physical and psychological health, the idea of a fulfilling spiritual life, and economic success display deep “elective affinities” that we seek to uncover by mobilizing a series of foundational sociological concepts such as the Bourdieusian notion of “field” and a Foucauldian reading of “biopolitics” and “governmentality”.

In this paper I provide a preliminary account of the Yoga Studies Dispositif, that is, that specific apparatus of knowledge production, legitimization, and dissemination that has allowed the birth and development of the discipline of “modern yoga research” as an autonomous field of study and, in turn, has asserted the study of modern forms of yoga as its primary object of inquiry. More specifically, and in line with the constructionist epistemology taken by the “discursive study of religion” approach, I focus on the processes of boundary-work and boundary-object creation of modern yoga research and argue that these are the most influential discursive strategies adopted in the formation of this new discipline. Following on this premise, I contend that similar processes of demarcation and conceptual production are also pivotal to the birth and development of other sub-disciplines within the study of religion.

This article seeks to contribute to the study of power and authority in the context of the contemporary sociology of religion. It provides a discursive and ethnographic account of the neo-Advaita guru Mooji and his teachings, with a focus on the main practice he advocates, namely the satsang. The article explores the guru–disciple relationship, the authoritarian and charismatic role of the teacher, and the devotees’ processes of disciplining and self-transformation as they attempt to reach self-realisation or enlightenment. Following a Foucauldian framework, the article introduces the concept of the satsang dispositif, the main disciplining, confessional, and self-transformative apparatus characterising Mooji’s teachings. The article ends by summarising the findings of the case study presented, discussing their relevance to the study of contemporary spiritualities in general and underlining the importance of questioning the claims of spiritual seekers regarding self-determination and self-actualisation.

In this article, through a carnal and participant approach to ethnography, we consider the pedagogical repertoires of Boxe Popolare (a style of boxing codified by Italian leftist grassroots groups) and Odaka Yoga (an innovative type of postural yoga blended with martial arts elements). We provide a close reading of what we call the pedagogies of engagement cultivated by these two practices, appreciating how their underlying spiritual philosophies are internalized in self-reflective projects oriented towards societal transformation. Our analysis draws from Pierrre Bourdieu’s dispositional sociology and the concept of “body pedagogics”. With regards to this framework, we explore the physical-spiritual apprenticeship to Boxe Popolare and Odaka Yoga in relation to the rise of a series of engaged dispositions, which bring practitioners to conceive of their own transformation as a way to encourage social change and support social justice programmes. More specifically, we emphasize the ritual dimensions of these practices, their forms of commitment, and finally their ambivalences regarding contemporary neoliberal governmentality and societal transformation. We conclude by reflecting on how the neoliberal character of contemporary martial activities, too often simply assumed, is socially reproduced—in practice— via specific processes of knowledge transmission; and calling for more attention to the overlaps between different social fields.