From Critical to Cosmic Consciousness: Feminist-Informed Yoga as a Healing Approach for Marginalized Mothers in a Mid-Sized Canadian City

Abstract Statement of the Problem: Yoga is a 27-billion-dollar industry in North American which is deeply rooted in capitalism, racism, and colonialism. The removal of spirituality from yoga in the Western world with the ascendency of the modern postural yoga movement in particular in Canada has been and continues to be harmful to yoga’s grounding in Jain history, and more generally to South Asian social and cultural development, and in particular to Jain diasporic women born and raised in Canada, such as myself. I argue that marginalized mothers are a group of people that could be re-centered through a practice of yoga as they are broadly impacted negatively because of race, gender, sexuality, class, and/or abilities within a present-day culture. Theoretical Framework and Research Questions: Decolonization is presented as the theoretical framework used to examine yoga through the lenses of both feminism and culture. The research questions were: (1) What is the theoretical foundation of feminist-informed yoga in contemporary culture? (2) What are some of the ways in which a feminist-informed yoga can be applied as a healing approach to various populations of marginalized mothers in a mid-sized Canadian city? Methods: I use a research method known as autoethnography that recognizes the reciprocal relationship between theory and story. Data collection includes a lay summary, journaling, yoga and meditation, text spinning, and collaging. Data analysis focuses on making sense of the story, my writing, and included thematizing, daily writing, theorizing the story, considerations of the story and editing. Findings: For research question one; I developed a theoretical foundation of feminist-informed yoga as practiced by me in contemporary culture, which included the yoga traditions, cultural appropriation, spiritual materialism, and commodification as central to its theoretical foundation along with trauma and addictions For research question two, feminist-informed yoga as a healing tool includes centring marginalized mothers experience in their racial-ethnic struggles and recognizes the lack of cultural representations of South Asian women from yoga spaces in Canada. In addition, the yoga traditions, centering feminism, addressing cultural appropriation, the impact of trauma and addictions in healing for marginalized mothers offers healing. Discussion and conclusions: I provided an argument of the forces that have cut yoga from its roots in Canada. In particular, the removal of Canadian-born Jain mothers and more generally, South Asian mothers who face systemic racism in yoga studios. It is difficult to access this kind of yoga in a meaningful way in Canada given the last 100 years of colonial appropriation and commodification of the practice. Yoga, as practiced in the Jain way of life, offers a holistic approach to well-being and spiritual health, including connection to cosmic consciousness and intuitive knowing that can be traced back to the ancient Harappa Valley Civilization. Reconnection to the yoga traditions through ahimsa (nonviolence) along with the bringing together of nature including the souls of animals, plants, and rocks is central. Feminist-informed yoga benefits as practical measures can be implemented in community spaces to assist women in decolonizing their lives and encouraging more profound respect for a Jain way of life and for the South Asian women who follow it in Canada.

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