Yoga practices in Beirut -

Abstract

This thesis explores yoga practices in Beirut through the lens of yoga practitioners and teachers living in the city. I use my position as ‘an accomplished apprentice’ (Wave and Wenger 1991) to draw my results from participant observation, interviews and life history recordings with the aim of addressing a key question: what does yoga mean to those individuals who practice it? Narrative is therefore the main discourse of my thesis. Whereas yoga is typically viewed as a ‘peaceful’ reflection of our society and its needs, yoga in this thesis emerges as the way in which individuals use the body to both challenge and to find their space in their immediate surroundings. Beginning with a description of yoga spaces, I explore the language and symbolism that is evoked by yoga practitioners through the treatment of the body. Based on my interviews, I reveal that rather than acquiring the ‘perfect body’ as dictated by the forces of societal pressure, yoga practitioners reported that instead they became the ‘perfect self’. I take this argument further through looking at the life histories of three of Beirut’s female yoga teachers, capturing their search for meaning, some commonalities between their life experiences, and the search for a ‘deeper’ meaning to life and death. In my final chapter, I highlight the tensions that exist in the yoga community based on its commodification and market value in Beirut society. I address key themes, such as gender and social class, and raise a number of inherent contradictions by offering a description of a yoga class that speaks of “universal love” at the same time as shunning a young Syrian girl that enters the practice space.