Understanding Yoga Studies

As a recognised field of academic study Yoga Studies is relatively young. Historically the study of traditions of yoga lived within a number of other academic disciplines; such as philology, Indology, history, religion and anthropology. In a contemporary academic context, studies of yoga have branched into further disciplinary contexts like sociology, ethnography, economics, modern history. This makes the field highly varied, engaging and exciting (we might be biased!) but also potentially vast and overwhelming for scholars new to the landscape.

The multi-disciplinarity of the field often requires an awareness of numerous domains of knowledge, and the different (and often contradictory) conventions of different disciplines can be bewildering. This content series aims to equip early-stage and independent scholars with the tools to better navigate this varied research landscape, and equally to help practitioner communities in understanding the diversity of research being done into both pre-modern and modern incarnations of this vast field of cultural practice.

We hope this will be a helpful resource that will inspire and strengthen interdisciplinary awareness and approaches. As the editors of the recent Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies (2021:9) observe, this kind of knowledge exchange really is vital to make sense of the complexity and on-going global developments within yoga, and to genuinely further and deepen understanding. 

Each entry is an introduction to a different discipline within the field of Yoga Studies including a short outline of the its placement in the field, a spotlight on three relevant academic voices, a short reading list and audio interview with a current academic working within that discipline.