Yoga practices as identity capital: preliminary notes from Turku, Finland

Authors

• Måns Broo Åbo Akademi University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67406

Keywords:

Postsecularism, Finland, Hatha yoga, Identity, Theosophy, Transnationalism, Implicit religion, Health, Body, Human, Body and soul, Secularization (Sociology), Physical fitness

Abstract

As elsewhere in Finland, different types of yoga practices are popular in the city of Åbo/Turku. But how do practitioners view their own relationship to their practice, and further, what do they feel that they as individuals gain from it? Through in-depth interviews with yoga teachers in the city of Turku, the author examines ways in which individuals, in what could be called a post-secular society, construct a meaningful sense of self and of individual agency. The observations offered in this article represent preliminary notes for a larger work on yoga in Turku, conducted at the ‘Post-Secular Culture and a Changing Religious Landscape’ research project at Åbo Akademi University, devoted to qualitative and ethnographic investigations of the changing religious landscape in Finland.