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.
Volume 6, Issue 1, 2021
Yoga During COVID-19: Perpetual Pandemics
Introduction
Personal Narratives
Articles
- Mothering and Self-Care While Black in the Age of COVID
This article examines the experiences of Black mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic through a lens of self-care. As a group of people particularly impacted by persistent gender inequality, the economic and health disparities laid bare by the pandemic, as well as the structural racism that underscores these inequities, Black mothers’ self-care emerges as an important topic of conversation as women everywhere confront the challenges of parenting, running households, and attending to their own well-being. Communicated through a collection of short case studies, this piece presents a broad range of narratives that demonstrate the way Black mothers engage the practice of yoga to attend to their needs and the needs of their families. Presented with statistical and analytical context, this piece demonstrates the ways yoga supports Black mothers and how it falls short.