Namaste All Day
This chapter focuses on the appropriating and commodifying practices of spirituality industries and asks how corporations, entrepreneurs, and consumers relate spiritual practices to ethical values through marketing and consumer activities. The author analyzes popular spiritual discourses, demonstrating how the powerful and subversive expressions appliqued across yogaware and the industry’s “do good” discourses are tied to a commitment to particular “yogic” or “spiritual” values. Yet, for all of the self-actualization it offers through PEACE LOVE YOGA the industry also plays a capitalist game that thrives on nostalgia about lost cultural norms, as well as neoliberal narratives about the capitalist market, self-care, and personal improvement.