Abstract

This thesis examines a yoga collective of primarily students and teachers in Montreal with attention to the circuits of mobility as well as broader interconnections and disjunctures created by global cultural flows. Varying forms of mobility within yoga are identified and studied such as, spatial, bodily, cognitive and conceptual mobility. Within these patterns of mobility the joining of ideas and practices as well as the contradictions that emerge from them are explored, for example between commercialism and the intended spirituality of yoga practice. This research project focuses on common modern postural and meditational yoga practices of today, and briefly looks at the teaching methods and learning practices within the kinesthetic culture of yoga. Further, the ways in which practitioners embody yoga is investigated.