Humans of Yoga

This Master Thesis research explores the modern postural yoga practice from the unique perspective of yoga practitioners in Amsterdam. Yoga evolved around 150 years ago during the interaction of Western individuals interested in Eastern, i.c. Indian religions. Western individuals (re)formed the spiritual almost God-like yoga practice into a reflexive practice to calm your so-called ‘monkey mind’ through a mind-body-spirit paradigm. 20th century sociologists such as Simmel, Weber, Bourdieu & Giddens analyzed increasing rationality within new modernity. This increase of rationalization caused a new mode of thinking, social constructions and individual choices versus chances. According to multiple scholars, in times of increasing rationalism and calculation, yoga became a great tool for reason, functioning as a mirror for the self, managing the body, where the individual becomes a reflexive project. Yoga revealed itself to be a powerful toolkit for a mindful and ascetic lifestyle, connecting the body to the mind through the dance of asanas and breathing techniques, promoting health and cope with disease which caused the immense popularity in scholarly study and the promotion of living a yogic healthy lifestyle. Due to its popularity in urban milieus world-wide, it became a multi-billion dollar industry where a self-identity could be consumed. About 1.6 million people are practicing yoga in The Netherlands today where yoga is being studied for physical exploration and relaxation. So why did we start practicing yoga in the first place? Why are we all hooked to this popular practice? And what does it offer us as Western individuals and us as a society today? In this Master Thesis research we will explore these questions through the sampling quota method searching for different types of yoga practitioners. During our quantitative phase we created ideal types. We explored our ideal types in order to collect a small group of representative profiles. We finally interviewed 9 out of the 21 yoga practitioners (sampling quota: yoga teachers) during our qualitative research phase. From the semi-structured interviews we could develop a framework in which different types of yoga practitioners are positioned within the theoretical concepts of spirituality, functionality, reflexive project and yogic capital. Through lifestyle research we tried to capture a sociological perspective on the yoga scene in Amsterdam, framing it in modernity theory where the individual is its own motive for practicing yoga, though influenced by social factors such as social positioning, education, financial circumstances and yogic interest.