Tag Archives: city rivalries

Actively Reading, activism, adaptation, advice, advocacy, Anthropology, arrogance, comment-fishing, communitas, Communities, community-building, Concordia University, critical thinking, cult of personality, cultural awareness, cultural capital, cultural diversity, democracy, Education, enthusiasm, experience, experimentation, expertise, grassroots, groupthink, hegemony, humanism, idealism, individualism, informal learning, learners, Learning, learning and teaching, market economy, mindshare, Montreal, naïve, networking, openness, participatory culture, personal life, Québécois, Quiet Revolution, soapbox, social capital, social dynamics, social sciences, social support systems, socialisation, sociocentrism, Sociology, trusting people, unintended uses, Ways of Knowing, Yoga

Yoga and Community in Contemporary North America

Leave a comment

Last night, Matthew Remski’s chapter on yoga “culture” served as the basis for a conversation on yoga and communities. Roseanne Harvey had invited some panelists and like-minded people to join her at Andrew Gordon Middleton’s and Michael O’Brien’s Studio Flow Space in Verdun.

After the conversation, I started reading Remski’s chapter in 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics, and Practice, the collected essays that Roseanne has edited with Carol Horton.

Several things transpired from this conversation and, though I’m still a yoga newbie, I thought I’d post a few thoughts.

Most important, to me, is the realization that yoga may be antithetical to community development. Remski’s chapter made some of this painfully clear and I had such a feeling of recognition while reading the first part of this chapter that I almost clapped. (It’d have been weird, since I was in the métro.)

Yoga, like transcendentalism, focuses on individualism. As Margaret Fuller with transcendentalism, I find something unsatisfying in this. While I can understand the value of therapeutic self-centredness, I can only handle it for short periods of time. As an extrovert, I need some level of social interaction, especially if I can help others. Navigating either Nietzsche or Thoreau, I quickly feel trapped in a limited world.

Which brings me to Catholicism. The topic ended up being a significant piece of the backdrop to last night’s conversation. Though I wasn’t baptized (and, therefore, not officially a member of the Catholic community), I was raised in a quickly-secularizing Catholic context (Québécois society during the Quiet Revolution). Culturally, I associate more directly with the Catholic Play Ethic (or with the Sensual Ethic) than with what Weber called the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE). Sounds like Remski may be in a similar situation. And so were some participants in last night’s conversation. Not that no Catholic subscribes to PWE or that all Protestants are caught in it. But it’s remarkable how “key scenarios” may differ along such lines. I’d rather have a picnic with Manet (or Monet) or a food fight with Gwen Stefani and the band than a success story written by Horatio Alger. Just don’t get me started about the difference between Fellini and Bergman.

What does this have to do with yoga? Precious little. Yoga is about self-improvement and introspection… until it becomes about interdependence, intersubjectivity, and projecting the mind outside the self. Only then does yoga reach a sense of community. But this sense of community isn’t local, social, cultural, spatial. It’s sense of universal community of mind, beyond such pesky little things as families, cities, countries, and social movements. In “loving kindness” meditation, the shift from individuals to the Whole Earth doesn’t sound very gradual. Sure, “the community” can be there as a target for meditation. But the difference in kind between a neighbourhood community and, say, the community of spirit between humans and locusts affords little discussion, in such a context.

Playing the social scientist during yesterday’s convo, I couldn’t help but point out two key features of communities, from a social science perspective: sense of belonging and interdependency. Though they apply to any community, they may be especially useful in the yoga context. I don’t know enough about yoga to be sure about this, but comments made after I mentioned these two dimensions did sound like they resonated with my simple description.

Interdependency is a recent addition to my definition of community. A student in my “Cyberspace Sociology” course added it as a key feature, and it really helps to bring things in focus. One aspect of this dimension is that community isn’t necessarily something we choose. We may choose some of our neighbours but we may be affected by many community members who’d otherwise have “nothing to do with us”. Also, given issues surrounding our natural environment, the ecological principles behind communities are easy to describe: we can “do our part” but the system can still be dysfunctional if some people don’t. As both victims of climate change and perpetrators of pollution which takes part in it, we can perceive the implications of being dependent on one another. Not to mention that interdependence is an important concept in yoga.

The sense of belonging part may afford more unpacking. Sure, hippies have reappropriated “kumbaya” as the mushy version of belonging. That one fits in the “community of spirits” model. In anthropology, we tend to focus on the “community of experience” model (if not on the “community of practise” one). To do so, some of us refer to Victor Turner’s communitas, based on the liminal phase in initiation rituals. Through this concept, we identify a space for intense relationships among equals, typical of people subjected to a difficult experience together. The concept also involves a separation from the rest of the social system.

By extension, we can think about the divisive nature of social identity: if there’s an us, there’s also a them. Quite frequently, this them is a particular group, with which the community entertains a rivalry. Montreal may be Quebec City’s “Other”, even though Montrealers care very little about the “national capital”. Fans of the Maple Leafs may also perceive Montreal as the other, although I’ve heard more anti-Boston sentiment in my youth than anything about Toronto.

Yoga’s communities are peculiar. It sounds like it may be possible to create a sense of belonging through yoga retreats and other occasions for shared experiences. Yet the embedded hierarchy of many yoga instruction models may shift the communitas away from “practice”. Bonding works remarkably well when people have a common foe (an initiator causing harm would be an appropriate figure, here). However authoritative they may be, yoga instructors may not desire this type of antagonism.

Though (as was clear from last night’s discussion) some yoga studios enter in direct competition as businesses, yoga communities may not be ideal places for impassioned rivalries. The “slippery slope” from opposition between groups and outright conflict may make peace-loving yoginis and yogis think twice about this type of chants and cheers.

Which isn’t to say that the yoga world lacks distinction. In fact, yoga sociology has a lot to explore. From the outside, the internal structure of the North American yogasphere is fascinating. But that structure, it sounds like, rarely made explicit. It also sounds like it’s inward-looking, to a fairly large extent. The yogasphere includes all sorts of yoga practitioners, but it’s focused on yoga teachers and other experts, not necessarily on the local embedding of yoga practice. Yoga studios, in this model, are like havens of peace in a fastpaced world. The them group comprises a large number of people who don’t get yoga.

Personally, I’m more interested in how communities can appropriate yoga. Yes, it involves the adaptation of yoga practice, which implies some level of inauthenticity. Thanks to the association between yoga and New Age (a drone under 21st Century Yoga), yoga specialists may shy away from this type of reappropriation. Yet, empowering communities through yoga-inspired practice could be a worthy cause for yogactivists.

Yoga needs space. A key theme during yesterday’s discussion was space: studio rent, overhead, location, sense of place, neighbourhoods as markets… In North American cities, yoga doesn’t own much space, and that’s the crux of the problem.

This is where we can go back to Catholicism, where Remski started his essay on yoga “culture”. It was an underlying theme through the discussion. (Funnily enough, the conversation was structured by a key figure who invited four “evangelists” and we were eight “disciples”.)

The Catholic Church does own space. In fact, a large part of the “business model” for the Catholic clergy relates to real estate. As many of these properties are being sold, there may be opportunities for community ownership of prime space. In fact, I’m a research associate for a community organization involved in a community-based project surrounding the reappropriation of a church. Wasn’t thinking about yoga in that space, but I’m sure some other people have been. Last summer, Yoga en rouge was happening (led by Audrey Béliveau) in Parc Molson, next door to that church. And it’s clearly a grassroots community affair.

I’m not (officially) Catholic and I’m a n00b to yoga. I’m finally grokking the difficulties to develop community membership through yoga. So I’ll continue doing my yoga practice at home, by myself, away from other people’s gaze. Still feels good.

Austin, Canada, comment-fishing, New Brunswick, Places, stereotypes, Texas, United States

Edmonton:Calgary::Austin:Houston

7 Comments

Or “Edmonton is to Calgary as Austin is to Houston.” (Can’t remember how this form is called but it’s pretty common.)

At the risk of inflaming some city rivalries, I propose that Edmonton and Austin might be functionally equivalent cities in their respective contexts. I say this without having been to Alberta or even to Houston. But I get the feeling my analogy isn’t too far off.

An newspaper article about Edmonton confirmed my earlier suspicion (been thinking about this for a while, actually).

Alberta and Texas have several things in common, including cattle and oil (along with cultural correlates like rodeo and external signs of wealth). Texans seem to know relatively little about Alberta but I get the impression Albertans can relate to some dimensions of Texas culture. Possibly more than most other Canadians.

Some Albertans I’ve met in the past have described Calgary and Edmonton as radically different cities. One (Calgary, I assume) is taken to be quite representative of the province as a whole, including its financial potential. Edmonton, on the other hand, was taken as a “different” city from the rest of the province. If, as that newspaper article implies, Edmonton used to be Alberta’s “cultural capital,” it all seems to make sense, to me. Even if it’s not that accurate. Significance and truth are different things.

Alberta as a whole is likely to be misunderstood by the rest of Canada. Typically, at least in the East, that province is perceived as the Canadian equivalent to the (legendary) “American Old West” (complete with cowboy hats). I’m certainly not saying that this association is accurate, especially given the level of inaccuracy involved in images of the “American Old West” in movies and literature. But I think that, in the Easterners’ skewed perception of Alberta, images from Western movies are more prominent than those of UofA. My feeling is that Edmonton is somewhat further from this “Western” stereotype than Calgary is. Yet both cities certainly have their own “personalities,” far away from stereotypes.

(As an aside. It’s customary for me to address stereotypes on diverse occasions. I know I’m walking on eggshells. My attitude is that stereotypes are important because they inform relationships between groups of people. I don’t condone stereotypes but I do enjoy taking them apart.)

Coming back to Texas. Like Alberta, it seems to be misunderstood by the rest of the country. And while the “American Old West” stereotypes are quite inaccurate, many people throughout North America (and even Europe) do perceive Texas through the “Western” lens. Several comments made by Austinites and visitors to Austin have demonstrated how far Austin is considered to be from the Western stereotypes. My impressions is that the Texas capital’s unofficial motto of “Keep Austin Weird” (used as a slogan for local businesses) partly refers to Austin’s eccentricity by opposition to stereotypes about Texas. Not exclusively, but partly. At least, this is the impression I get from intellectuals who talk about Austin.

So, both Edmonton and Austin might be cities which are specifically trying to break away from regional stereotypes. They both host important festivals with themes of marginality or independence.  As it so happens, both cities are capitals and neither city is the largest in its region. They both have important universities which have traditionally been better-known than universities in their respective rival cities. And they seem to be unofficial sister cities.

Now, how about Calgary and Houston? Well… Both are big oil cities. Does that mean anything? I really can’t tell. People seem to assume a lot from these broad impressions about cities. And I’m quite convinced that these assumptions eventually imply the influx of people who are seeking a specific lifestyle. My guess would be that both Calgary and Houston may attract people who enjoy the same kind of thing, including driving and attending rodeos. (I’m only half-joking.)

No idea about Edmonton on this point but I must say that Austin attracts drivers. Of SUVs. As a compulsive pedestrian, I perceive a disconnect between the “absolute necessity” of having a car in Austin and the ideals many Austinites seem to have about pedestrian-friendly lifestyle. As compared to Boston, Montreal, or even Chicago, Austin is not a pedestrian-friendly city. Some people want to change this state of things but it’s possible that their efforts are doomed unless they carefully assess the situation.

Going back to my original analogy… I would add New Brunswick to the mix. Fredericton is like Austin and Edmonton while Saint John is like Houston and Calgary. Funny that Saint John should be an oil city the site of a major oil conglomerate [Edit 11/04/08 1:11:21 PM] and that Fredericton should be a capital. But I mean it more in terms of cultural associations.

The pattern doesn’t apply everywhere. It’d be very hard to fit cities in most other parts of North America or Europe in the model. In fact, I’m convinced that people will describe, in detail, how wrong I am in my associations between the four cities in the title.

But I still find it a fun thing to talk about.

Although I really enjoyed Fredericton and I’m currently enjoying life in Austin, I don’t mean to say that I’d dislike Calgary, Houston, or any other city. I feel that I can live in just about any city and, in the ten or so cities where I’ve lived for at least a month in the past eight years, I’m not always sure which I preferred. Actually, chances are that what I can do in a city is much more important than the city itself, in terms of my liking the locale.

Ah, well…