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Hum Stud (2017) 40:77100 DOI 10.1007/s10746-016-9404-6
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Yoga in Penitentiary Settings: Transcendence, Spirituality, and Self-Improvement
Mar Griera1
Published online: 29 July 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Yoga, together with other so-called holistic spiritual practices such as reiki or meditation, is one of the most popular spiritual disciplines in our contemporary society. The success of yoga crosses the boundaries between health, sport, religion, and popular culture. However, from a sociological point of view, this is a largely under-researched eld. Aiming to ll this gap, this article analyzes the impact, meaning, and implications of the practice of yoga by taking prisons as the institutional context of the study. The growth of yoga in penitentiary settings is a recent trend in many countries and raises new questions concerning its potential to foster well-being and self-transformation. The research presented here applies Schutzs concepts of nite province of meaning and stock of knowledge to understand yogas role in inmates lives. The main argument of the article is that yoga is a body technique that affords inmates the possibility to enter into a nite province of meaning and transcend their everyday prison lives. However, the impact of yoga upon inmates lives is not limited just to its physical effects as learning yoga also involves the acquisition of a spiritual stock of knowledge made up of Eastern philosophy, holistic concepts, and self-help therapeutic narratives. Indeed, physical movements and spiritual accounts constitute one another in the practice of yoga, thus opening up a pathway into a different reality; movement and spiritual discourse inform one anotherand it is precisely in this reexivity that transcendent experiences are created and yoga is made meaningful and important in the improvement-setting of the prison. This article is based on ethnographic eldwork developed carried out in two different penitentiary institutions.
The article is part of the special issue on Alfred Schutz and Religion.
& Dr. Mar [email protected]
1 ISOR, Departament de Sociologia, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona,08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona (Catalonia), Spain
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78 M. Griera
Keywords Spirituality Religion Schutz Yoga Penitentiary institutions
Transcendence experiences
Introduction
Religious afliations, practices, and beliefs have dramatically changed over recent decades in Europe. Historical churches have been displaced as principal providers of spiritual experiences...