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{
    "pk": 48368,
    "title": "Disrupting Monoliths: Yogi Haider's Localization of Yoga in Pakistan",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "<p>Yogi Haider, a contemporary yoga teacher from Phalia, Punjab, now based in Islamabad, offers a compelling example of what teaching yoga in Pakistan entails. Despite the shared cultural heritage between India and Pakistan, post-Partition tensions have made yoga a controversial practice in Pakistan. This study explores how Yogi Haider’s individual narrative challenges stereotypical portrayals of Pakistan and reveals yoga’s often overlooked presence in the country. It provides an alternative perspective that situates yoga within Pakistan’s cultural, religious, and political landscape, countering its exclusive association with Hindu and Indian identity. This paper argues that Yogi Haider strategically uses social media to display how he localizes his teachings by incorporating poetry, spatial markers, and historical elements. In doing so, he challenges both Pakistan’s global image and India’s sole claim to yoga. His work highlights how yoga in Pakistan is under-represented in academic and media discourse due to prevailing biases. To analyze how Yogi Haider frames his teachings for a Pakistani audience, this study employs digital ethnography and discourse analysis of his public content on Facebook and YouTube posted in both Urdu and English. Digital ethnography enables immersion in his online community to observe how he constructs his persona and represents himself. Discourse analysis offers insight into his language and intertextual references revealing how he positions yoga within the Pakistani context and disrupts dominant narratives linking it exclusively to India and Hinduism.</p>",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0",
        "short_name": "CC BY-NC-ND 4.0",
        "text": "Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\n\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.",
        "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "digital ethnography"
        },
        {
            "word": "Transnational Yoga"
        },
        {
            "word": "Yoga and Islam"
        },
        {
            "word": "Yoga in Pakistan"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Articles and Personal Narratives",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/99k5m865",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Diane",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Charmey",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": "2025-05-31T08:43:38-07:00",
    "date_accepted": "2025-10-24T18:14:25-07:00",
    "date_published": "2025-12-31T08:23:00-08:00",
    "render_galley": {
        "label": "Galley_Charmey",
        "type": "pdf",
        "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/raceandyoga/article/48368/galley/47774/download/"
    },
    "galleys": [
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            "label": "Galley_Charmey",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/raceandyoga/article/48368/galley/47774/download/"
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    ]
}