Let’s move from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation in Yoga.
Challenges on Instagram promoting asanas as yoga, Shiva statues “decorating” the bathrooms of Berlin studios, yoga magazines featuring experts in Ayurveda: all female, all white.
The list of examples of cultural appropriation by yogis in Germany and around the world is long, too long.
Too many reasons to move from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation in Yoga.
But what exactly is cultural appropriation in yoga?
In short, cultural appropriation in yoga describes the separation of this millennia-old teaching from its specific cultural context and from its past and present actors in that context.
The processes of cultural appropriation in yoga mainly involve people from the Western world.
They do own more privileges in the power structure of a society characterized by white supremacy.
Mechanisms such as the simplification and isolation of individual components such as clothing, rituals, or symbols by those higher in power characterize the processes of cultural appropriation.
With cultural appropriation, we perpetuate colonial thinking and action. This leads to, or uncritically perpetuates, inequities in income, representation, and power.
Why avoid cultural appropriation in yoga?
There are compelling political arguments for actively critiquing and changing cultural appropriation based on principles of equality, fairness, and universal human rights.
These arguments are valid no matter where we encounter cultural appropriation or where we are at risk of engaging in it. Relevant areas can be as diverse as the clothing, food, and music industries, spa services, and interior design.
But to answer the specific question of cultural appropriation in yoga, a brief look at Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras will help. He provides us with ethical arguments against cultural appropriation in yoga.
The eight-limbed path of yoga set forth in the Yoga Sutras begins with the five yamas, the first part of the ethical principles of yoga.
The first yama is ahimsa, non-violence
Cultural appropriation hurts people on many levels and thus stands in stark contrast to this first ethical pillar of yoga philosophy.
Many people of Indian and Southeast Asian origin, as well as other BIPoC, report unpleasant and hurtful to traumatizing experiences within Westernized yoga spaces.
Experiences in which white people excluded, used, exploited and otherwise discriminated them. You can read more about Racism and Yoga in our post It is not talking about racism that divides us, silence does .
In the past years, for example, English-language yoga activists Susanna Barkataki and Kallie Schut have shared personal experiences of cultural appropriation in their various works, as have Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh in their prominent podcast Yoga is Dead.
The second yama is satya, a term that can be translated as honesty or truthfulness
In this sense, the philosophy of yoga requires us to be honest about our own preconditions and the origins of our own knowledge and ignorance. This includes positioning ourselves with critical self-reflection, at least with regard to our origins, skin color, gender, sexual orientation and related privileges such as networks, perceptions of others and access to relevant resources.
This honest and self-critical stance can help us to better recognize our own role in the active and passive exclusion of other groups of people or individuals.
For example, if we teach in places with diverse populations, but find that our students are very homogeneous in terms of one or more identity characteristics such as class, origin or gender, we have to change something.
We can actively seek ways to make our provision more inclusive, for example through special provision for low-income groups, different teaching times or collaborations.
Teachers can also use this self-positioning with their students to openly and consciously explain why they have chosen to deviate from tradition at certain points in their own yoga practice and/or teaching.
For example, a yoga teacher who is also a massage therapist can explain why she would like to give her students, with their consent, a brief head, neck and shoulder massage during Shavasana.
This massage during shavasana is not part of the tradition of yoga. Neither the imaginary teacher nor her students would misunderstand this massage as part of the teaching after the additional explanation.
And Patanjali’s third precept: Asteya (non-stealing)
This yama stands in stark contrast to what we often experience in German and worldwide yoga businesses and communities. Exclusive yoga retreats in India, for example, are in ethical conflict with this principle when they are organized exclusively by non-resident schools or teachers.
These services, often promoted as an “authentic experience”, massively restrict or exclude the participation of local interested people with high participation fees and cultural appropriated contents.
A good teacher will always be transparent about their own level of training in yoga and their own teachers and influences.
Can we not do or teach yoga at all now?
The way out of cultural appropriation is called cultural appreciation. Activist yoga teacher Jesal Parikh recently posted a very helpful overview of the contrast between appropriation and appreciation in yoga on Instagram.
This valuable overview is not yet complete, but I think it is a very helpful first roadmap for us. It helps us to turn away from the false path of cultural appropriation and towards one of cultural appreciation.
Now and then, we all will lose our paths, get insecure and tempted to take more convenient shortcuts. But as long as we pay attention to our own internalized parts of white supremacy in ourselves and our behaviors, we will continue to learn from each other’s mistakes, apologize when necessary and correct the path.
Let’s move together from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation in Yoga.
Great article. More cultural appreciation that cultural appropriation from westerners.