A therapy to live by: public health, the self and nationalism in the practice of a north Indian yoga society

The health imaginary of postural yoga

This paper explores the capacity of yoga narratives and practices to contribute to and relate ideas about health. It adds theoretically to existing literature on yoga by introducing the concept of the 'health imaginary' as an analytic lens for considering yoga discourses in late modern times, where personal health care and spiritual ambitions are once again becoming blurred. With this perspective, the paper provides a thorough analysis of how yoga postures (asanas) are conceived to work therapeutically, in yoga's recent history and in present-day yoga therapy. Taking case studies from India and Germany, it is shown empirically how the application of asanas is rationalized differently in specific geographical and therapeutic environments - particularly regarding the presumed theory of the body. Thus, the concept of the health imaginary not only provides analytic space to explore the implicit logics and goals of healing in different contexts, but also offers clues about the distinct social, cultural/religious, and local influences that draw people into yoga and contribute to its selective appropriation across the globe.

A wellbeing skill: moving attentively in hospital yoga practice

Yoga is sometimes interpreted as medical therapy and the evidence from biomedical research indicates that it can be useful in a broad range of health conditions. Yoga, however, can also be pursued as a process-oriented contemplative practice. This article draws on participant observation-based research with yoga practitioners at two hospitals, one in Pondicherry, India, and one in Fukui, Japan. It explores how patients and their families at these healthcare institutions are invited to move without anticipating an outcome and to cultivate attitudes such as contentment and non-violence. Taking cues from research participants' approaches to yoga as a skill and from anthropological understandings of skill, yoga is considered here as a capacity of moving with awareness. A skill-based approach allows practitioners to try out yogic techniques according to their personal abilities and needs. The analysis suggests that, in the contexts discussed, yoga practitioners pursue wellbeing not as an individual therapeutic goal but as mutual explorative learning.

Nature cure treatment in the context of India's epidemiological transition

Scholars have argued that theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology should be applied to the analysis of complementary and alternative medicine in order to develop more critically engaged integrative medicine. In this essay we focus on nature cure in the context of India's contemporary epidemiological transition as an example of why engaged integrative medicine is important for public health, and how the institutionalization of nature cure treatment in India provides a critical framework for the development of programs focused on holistic treatment and prevention. After providing an overview of the epidemiological transition in contemporary India, we develop this argument through an examination of illustrative cases in a clinic that operates within the structure of India's Central Council for Research on Yoga and Naturopathy. Based on a review of recent history and contemporary practice we describe how a system of medicine that makes use exclusively of air, earth, sunlight, water and food has been institutionalized and professionalized in India. Whereas biomedical treatment for chronic non-communicable diseases is focused on the problem of curing individual diseases, nature cure establishes a regimen of personalized public healthcare for the integrated management of symptoms. We argue that nature cure is based on an ecological understanding of health, thus providing treatment that reflects a broad appreciation for the risk factors that characterize India's current crises of public health.