# Talk:Yoga and cultural appropriation

This article has been written entirely neutrally, considering different sides of the issue, each cited to reliable and scholarly sources. 
The article has passed formal review to Good Article status.
An editor has attempted to delete major portions of this text on the incorrect grounds of non-neutrality. These have therefore been reverted. Happy to discuss but a priori there is no justification for such changes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:52, 11 August 2025 (UTC)


### NPOV and sourcing concerns (UNDUE/RS/SYNTH); request to re-balance and tag
I believe the current version has multiple neutrality and sourcing issues per WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, WP:LEAD, and potential WP:SYNTH problems. Summary:
1) UNDUE weight on lifestyle/sector and self-published voices vs. scholarship
Large portions rely on sectoral outlets and personalities (e.g., “Yoga Girl,” Yoga International, lifestyle/press opinion pieces) to define complex social and historical claims. Those are usable for illustrating viewpoints but should not carry the article’s core theses. Per WP:RS and WP:UNDUE, high-level claims should be grounded primarily in secondary academic sources (books/articles with peer review).
2) RS concerns / SELFPUBLISH
Self-published or commercial sites (e.g., personal brands/blogs) are cited for definitional or analytical statements. These should be either removed, clearly attributed as opinion, or relegated to a brief “Media/industry perspectives” section, subordinate to scholarly literature.
3) LEAD issues / unattributed generalizations
The lead uses prescriptive or generalized language (“scholars/authors from India… seek X”), without immediate attribution and with ambiguous labeling (diaspora vs. India, journalists vs. scholars). Per WP:LEAD and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, please rephrase with explicit attribution and keep the lead as a neutral summary of well-sourced content.
4) Systemic omission (another form of UNDUE)
Key strands and actors are undercovered, creating bias by omission. For balance, the article should summarize:
The reconstruction/medicalization of modern postural yoga by Indians in late-colonial/early-postcolonial India (e.g., Kuvalayananda, Yogendra; culture-physical influences).
“Take Back Yoga” (Hindu American Foundation) and analyses of nationalist/Hindutva-adjacent narratives, with academic context (not advocacy).
Glocalization/re-appropriation in India (urban, middle-class contexts), complicating one-way “appropriation” frames.
5) Separate activism/media prescriptions from scholarship
Guidance like “how to decolonize/avoid appropriation” belongs—if kept—under a clearly labeled perspectives section with strong attribution, not as encyclopedia voice.


#### Proposed remedies
Add  /  pending re-work (unless there’s quick consensus to fix now).
Rebalance citations so that scholarly sources carry the main claims; keep industry/press/blog material as attributed viewpoints.
Rewrite the lead to summarize the balanced scholarly picture with clear attribution.
Reorganize into: (1) Scholarly perspectives and history of the debate; (2) Activism and media discourse; (3) Cases/controversies; (4) Reception and glocalization in India.
Delete moralist tone prescriptions.


#### High-reliability sources to integrate (examples)
Mark Singleton, Yoga Body (OUP) – genealogy of modern postural yoga and culture-physical influences.
Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India (Princeton) – scientization/medicalization (Kuvalayananda, Yogendra).
Andrea Jain, Selling Yoga (OUP) – commodification, authenticity debates, industry/religion interface.
Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga – modern/esoteric lineages and neo-Vedanta.
Suzanne Newcombe, Yoga in Britain – transnational adaptation rather than one-way appropriation.
Peer-reviewed articles on “glocal yoga” and Indian re-appropriation (e.g., Askegaard & Eckhardt 2012), and critical communication studies (e.g., Mary Grace Antony 2018).


#### Reframe article into scholar focus
Suggested addition in the introduction to the article (Scholarly perspectives) to be part of the center of neutral/encyclopedical tone of the article:

Several scholars argue that modern postural yoga took shape in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century India as a reconstruction in dialogue with Western physical culture, nationalism, and the medicalization of bodily practice. Foundational studies show that the centrality of āsana, a health-and-fitness orientation, and classroom pedagogies were significantly shaped by Indian reformers such as Swami Kuvalayananda and Shri Yogendra, who reinterpreted and systematized yoga for modern audiences in India and abroad. From this perspective, so-called “Western yoga” is less a one-way appropriation than a transnational co-creation, in which Indian actors themselves strategically adapted, branded, and disseminated yoga within emerging spiritual and therapeutic markets.Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. Oxford University Press. Alter, Joseph S. (2004). Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Science and Philosophy. Princeton University Press. Jain, Andrea R. (2015). Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. Oxford University Press. Askegaard, Søren; Eckhardt, Giana M. (2012). "Glocal yoga: Re-appropriation in the Indian consumptionscape". Marketing Theory. 12 (1): 45–60. doi:10.1177/1470593111424180.
Redaction for the body of the article:

Presenting “Western yoga” as an appropriation of a fixed, pure Indian tradition is, according to historical research, a mythic or pseudohistorical narrative. Scholars widely argue that modern postural yoga emerged in late-19th- and early-20th-century India through a process of Indian-driven reconstruction in dialogue with Western physical culture, Indian nationalism, and the medicalization of bodily practice; foundational works further contend that the rise of āsana to centrality, a health-and-fitness orientation, and classroom pedagogies were shaped to a large extent by Indian reformers and gurus—notably Swami Kuvalayananda and Shri Yogendra—who reinterpreted and systematized yoga for modern audiences within and beyond India. Analytically, claims that modern yoga has been “appropriated” by the West do not withstand serious historical scrutiny, and leading syntheses emphasize that “every group in every age has created its own version and vision of yoga.” Rather than a one-way “theft,” the scholar literature describes transnational co-creation and commodification driven originally by Indian actors who branded and marketed yoga in global spiritual/therapeutic niches, alongside patterns of re-appropriation within India itself.
Explanation of the scholar sources (the point is mainly that the legendary approach created in the 19th and 20th centuries around the idea of millenialist pure lineages in the origins of Indian-driven modern yoga is the cause of the current mis-interpretation of Western yoga as "appropiation" --when is mainly an Indian yoga reformers exportation for North Atlantic World):
Claims of Western “appropriation” don’t survive historical scrutiny. Andrea R. Jain explicitly writes that protests framing modern yoga as appropriated by the West “do not withstand serious historical scrutiny.”
Yoga’s historical malleability undermines “pure essence” narratives. David Gordon White summarizes: “Every group in every age has created its own version and vision of yoga,” i.e., no fixed object that could be “stolen.”
Indian reconstruction drawing on Western physical culture. Mark Singleton documents how modern postural yoga took shape in India through engagement with European/Scandinavian gymnastics, drill, and physical culture (e.g., in the Mysore milieu), alongside pedagogical and therapeutic reorientation.
Modernization and medicalization in India. Joseph S. Alter shows that yoga was modernized and medicalized in India, becoming a system of physical culture tied to laboratories, physiology, and health reform—again indicating an Indian-led reconstruction aimed at contemporary audiences at home and abroad.
Transnational commodification and re-appropriation (not one-way “theft”). Scholarship further details branding, markets, and circulation across India and the West (Jain 2015; Newcombe 2019) and re-appropriation within India (Askegaard & Eckhardt 2012), contradicting a one-directional “appropriation” frame.
Taken together, these sources support the proposed paragraph’s core thesis: “Western yoga” is not a straightforward case of Western appropriation, but a modern, Indian-led reconstruction that strategically integrated Western physical culture and was later exported and co-created transnationally. This aligns the article with mainstream scholarship and addresses current UNDUE/RS concerns.

If there’s agreement, I’m happy to draft a neutral lead and a sourcing plan that prioritizes the above scholarship and properly attributes activist and media perspectives.--Hades7 (talk) 11:31, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. I'm familiar with most of the books and scholars mentioned, but I fundamentally disagree with the supposed diagnosis of multiple faults with this article: basically, all of your claims are overblown and misguided, ignoring the perfectly decent structure, content, and citations already in the article. It carefully provides a balanced treatment, integrating multiple perspectives as it should. The proposed tags, for example, are simply wrong, and the proposed redactions wholly unnecessary: indeed they'd make the article worse not better. None of the sources fall into the banned self-published category (Brathen is a notable yoga leader); there is no synthesis anywhere in the article. Those are just some of the many errors in this absurd set of proposals. Rather than spend pages and weeks arguing about the details of your exceptionally over-long posting, let's wait and see what other editors on the WikiProject have to say. If they add anything of note, I'll reply to them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:00, 11 August 2025 (UTC)