“Likes - the new Self?” How does social currency affect yoga practitioners in Sweden?

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of social currency on yoga practitioners in Sweden, emphasising the relation between social currency, sexualisation and yoga. Social currency is best described as the more likes on social media, the higher social status – especially on Instagram. Following this definition, this article aims at exploring why and how we practice yoga in Sweden by asking 1) how yoga practitioners perceive and embody yoga, and 2) to what extent there is a relation between social currency, sexualisation and yoga. Departing from a combined methodology of 10 narrative interviews and content analysis of 20 Instagram accounts, supported by a theoretical apparatus of French sociologists Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard and American author bell hooks, two conclusions are drawn: ▪ Within the yoga community, two opposite philosophical directions are identified: the traditionalists and Yoga 2.0. This polarisation shows a tendency towards a shift in favour of those who use yoga to gain social currency. This has consequences for how we perceive and embody yoga, with individualism and sexualisation as prominent aspects. ▪ There is a strong relation between social currency, sexualisation and yoga, in which Instagram plays an essential part as being a role-model for how to perceive and embody yoga. This implies a normalisation of cultural and human exploitation and objectification. These results point at the necessity to broaden the discussion of social currency, sexuality, and what impact this will have on yoga practitioners today. This concern also involves how re-writing of culture has become a normalisation in which old colonial and oppressing structures not only are being sanctioned, but even more and reproduced and socially incorporated. The critique against traditional yoga practitioners being religious and obsolete, simultaneously creates the ‘new’ religion: that of worshipping the physical body as currency for social status and capital, which I call the ‘Church of bodies.’ This paradox opens doors for further research on the modern yoga and its consequences and impact on the direction in which today’s yoga community is heading.