Daniela Bevilacqua – From Tapas to Modern Yoga
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies
- Event type
- Webinar
About this event
SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies is delighted to host Daniela Bevilacqua, author of From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied Practices, in discussion with respondent, Raphaël Voix.
Extensively based on fieldwork material, From Tapas to Modern Yoga primarily analyses embodied practices of ascetics belonging to four religious orders historically associated with the practice of yoga and haṭha yoga. This focus on ascetics stems from the fact that yogic techniques probably developed in ascetic contexts, yet scholars have rarely focused their attention on non-international ascetic practitioners of yoga.
Creating a confrontation between textual sources and ethnographic data, the book demonstrates how ‘embodied practices’ (austerities, yoga and haṭha yoga) over the centuries accumulated layers of meanings and practices that coexist in the literature as well as in the words of contemporary sādhus. Drawing from conversations with these interlocutors, the book demonstrates the importance of ethnographic fieldwork in shedding light on past historical developments, transmissions, contemporary reinterpretation and innovation.
The book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of yoga alike.
Author
Daniela Bevilacqua is an Indianist specialized in Hindu asceticism, investigated through an ethnographic and historical perspective. She received her PhD in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. She worked as a post-doc research fellow at SOAS for the ERC- funded Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2020).
She is currently a researcher at CRIA (ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon as PI of the project “Performing the Sacred: Ethnographies of Transgender Activism in the Kinnar Akhara.” She authored Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India (Routledge 2018), From Tapas to Modern Yoga. Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied Practices (Equinox 2024), edited volumes, and written several articles and book chapters on topics related to Hindu religious tradition, gender, and embodied practices.
Respondent
Raphaël Voix is an anthropologist, holder of a PhD from the Université Paris-X-Nanterre (2010) and a Bengali diploma from the INALCO (DULCO—Diplôme universitaire de langues et civilisations orientales: University Diploma in Eastern Languages and Civilizations). He has been a CNRS research fellow (section 38) since 2013 and teaches at the EHESS. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal SAMAJ and of the Modern Yoga Research group.
His work is focused on the study of the social dimensions of Hindu asceticism, on the basis of ethnographic surveys conducted in West Bengal. He is particularly interested in the utopian dimension of the sectarian phenomenon: the fact that the sect can be a space of expression—enunciated or practiced—of radical social alternatives. This work was at first, as part of his PhD research, centered on a specific group, famous for its politico-religious militancy and the violence some of its members have been accused of.
Inquiries were then extended to other movements with nationalist or millenarian tendencies. In each case, close attention has been paid to the ideological constructions of these groups, as well as to the legal framework and economic and political contexts that encompass them. Since 2015, he has begun a research project on wayside shrines. These various focal points generally connect with the research teams he is involved in.
