Call for Papers: Race and Yoga Journal 8.1 (2024) - OPEN ISSUE

The Race and Yoga editorial board is currently seeking articles, personal narratives, interviews, book reviews, and creative works for the eight issue of the journal, to be published by December 31, 2024. Race and Yoga is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, and international academic journal committed to critical examinations of the history, politics, and practice of yoga. For this issue, the editorial board is particularly interested in submissions that contend with relationships between yoga and contemporary crises.

Possible topics may include yoga in relationship to:

Structural violence and oppression:

• Genocide
• White Supremacy
• Settler Colonialism
• Fascism
• Zionism
• Hindu Supremacy
• Nationalism
• Caste hierarchies
• Spiritual bypassing
• Yoga and trauma
• Material and structural resistance
• Yoga and Palestine

Practices during the COVID-19 context, including but not limited to:

• Communities and accountability
• COVID-19 conspiracies
• Studio safety, community care policies & vaccinations
• Santosha/Contentment in a global pandemic

Philosophical principles:

• In relationship to critical race and gender studies
• In relationship to community
• Cartesian dualism

Labor practices

• Capitalism, grind/hustle culture, and the gig economy
• Rest and/as resistance

Communities and identities

• Community building and dividing
• Inclusive/exclusive, safe/threatening spaces
• Social Justice and Transformative Justice
• Practices and communities outside North America
• Cultural appropriation/co-optation (e.g. of cultural symbols)
• Possibilities and limitations of identity politics
• Lateral oppression
• The politics of representation
• Yoga retreats and yoga teacher trainings in India and elsewhere

Non-Eurocentric epistemologies or cosmologies

• Perceptions of kinesthetic knowledge from an Indigenous and/or non-Western perspective, including but not limited to:
• Sensations, somatic awareness, and parts of the body conversing
• Sensory attention beyond replicating shapes
• Plural selves
• Alternative health practices

Environmental studies

Papers addressing other topics will also be considered.

Aims and Scope

Race and Yoga is the first peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, and international academic journal committed to examinations of the history and practice of yoga; the journal brings together critical yoga studies and critical race theory to examine issues surrounding the history, racialization, sex(ualization), and inclusivity (or lack thereof) of the yoga community. Race and Yoga is published through The University of California Press’s e-scholarship division. Race and Yoga accepts original, unpublished manuscripts (no simultaneous submissions or previously published works) only.

Peer Review Policy

Race and Yoga editors vet each submission to ensure alignment with the journal’s scholarly goals. If selected, the submission is sent to two anonymous referees.

Submission Instructions

Article manuscripts should be limited to 8,000 words, including endnotes and references. An abstract that does not exceed 250 words should be included. Personal narratives should be 2,000-3,000 words. Personal narratives share first-person experiences related to the journal’s focus on intersectional racial politics and social justice possibilities within yoga practices. We also accept review essays that survey recently published literature, films, art exhibits, or popular culture related to the field. Review essays should be limited to 4,000 words. Papers should be left-justified and use a non-decorative font (e.g. Times New Roman). For endnote and reference formatting, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (author-date style). Papers that do not adhere to submission guidelines will be returned to the author for revision.

Upload your abstract, manuscript, and 150 word bio (as the supplementary file) to: http://escholarship.org/uc/crg_raceandyoga

Please send all inquiries to raceandyoga@gmail.com

DEADLINE: May 1, 2024