About
Critical Yoga Studies is the first interdisciplinary and transnational journal to focus on the social, cultural, political, and historical dimensions of yoga. From 2016 to 2025, Critical Yoga Studies was published under the name Race and Yoga and featured peer-reviewed articles and personal narratives written by yoga scholars, teachers, and practitioners. The journal’s name change in 2026 reflects the development of critical yoga studies over the last decade and the wide range of approaches and topics that the field encompasses.
Mainstream narratives about yoga in the U.S. often describe how the practice promotes physical and spiritual wellbeing. But, yoga practitioners and scholars rarely question who has had access to the practice since its arrival in North America, and thereby its purportedly healing and liberatory properties. Relatedly, they fail to critically interrogate the representation of the prototypical yogi in contemporary America: upper and middle-class white persons, particularly white women.