| ID | 191699 |
| Title Proper | State Spectacles of Yoga |
| Other Title Information | Invisible India and India Everywhere |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Black, Shameem |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This essay investigates competing visibilities within a cultural practice that India has promoted as a privileged image of national identity: yoga. These competing perceptions, in which yoga can be seen as at once iconically and yet not uniquely Indian, pose a challenge for the Indian state in its management of yoga’s symbolic value. Analysing rhetoric from India’s nation-branding pursuits in the context of Western popular culture, I argue that the state manipulates visual regimes of yoga in ways that turn this spectre of Indian invisibility into a testament to Indian ubiquity. Invisibility as a problem is thus transformed into invisibility as a privilege, revealing how the potential fluidity across two different regimes of identity and power can render state fantasies more resilient. |
| `In' analytical Note | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. 46, No.1; Feb 2023: p.1-17 |
| Journal Source | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Vol: 46 No 1 |
| Key Words | India ; Tourism ; Nation Branding ; Yoga ; Incredible India ; International Day of Yoga |