Abstract

GRIERA, Mar. Masculinities and spirituality in penitentiary centres. An ethnographic study on the practice of yoga in prisons. Sociologia [online]. 2021, n.tematico11, pp.11-32.  Epub Feb 17, 2022. ISSN 0872-3419.  https://doi.org/10.21747/08723419/soctem2021a1.

In recent years, yoga has gained popularity as a practice oriented to the search for personal, spiritual and physical well-being. The dominant profile of the yoga practitioner has been defined, mostly, as a woman, middle class and living in cities of the western world. However, recent research shows that yoga, as well as other practices from holistic spirituality, are also gaining ground among the male population. Nonetheless, there are almost no studies that focus on investigating the intersection between masculinity and holistic spirituality. This article is a first step to fill this gap. The objective is to understand sociologically the processes of popularization of yoga in a context with a majority presence of working class men -prison institutions-, and to analyze the impact of the practice of yoga in the emergence of alternative conceptions of masculinity.

Keywords : spirituality; prison; masculinity; yoga; gender.

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