Studying at the source: Ashtanga yoga tourism and the search for authenticity in Mysore, India

@article{Maddox2015StudyingAT,  title={Studying at the source: Ashtanga yoga tourism and the search for authenticity in Mysore, India},  author={Callie Batts Maddox},  journal={Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change},  year={2015},  volume={13},  pages={330 - 343},  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143449133}}
  • C. Maddox
  • Published2 October 2015
  • Sociology
  • Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
Based on a critical reading of the history of Ashtanga yoga, participant observation, and interviews with Americans attending the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore, this article explores the notion of authenticity within Ashtanga yoga itself and amongst yoga practitioners journeying to India hoping to find an authentic travel experience. Many of these tourists assume that the yoga experienced in Mysore is more genuine than that practiced in the West due to its location and… 

45 Citations

Celebrity-Induced Yoga Tourism: The Case of Amritapuri Ashram, India

The present-day stress, societal changes, and hectic life make the quest for mental and physical well-being. The market for yoga tourism has been growing ever before. Ashrams and Gurus are vital…

Salute to the sun: an exploration of UK Yoga tourist profiles

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on exploring yoga tourism as an under researched area where little has been written to date. Yoga tourism is an emergent niche market that can be viewed as a subset of…

A Socio-cultural Perspective on Yoga Tourism

ABSTRACT Yoga has become an increasingly widespread activity, also becoming popular as a form of tourism. Many Westerners travel to the roots of yoga, to destinations in India, where yoga originated,…

Interrogating Racialized “Cultural Authenticity” Discourses Among Language-Learner Tourists in Australia

This study considers cultural adaptation through tourism, focusing on language-travelers: hybrid education-tourism consumers whose voices remain relatively silent in tourism studies. Qualitative,…

Yoga wellness tourism: a study of marketing strategies in India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine marketing strategies that India is currently applying to promote itself as a competitive yoga destination.Design/methodology/approachThe…

Authenticity of Fourth World Country Tourism: A Case of Baduy, Indonesia

This study aims to explore authenticity of a fourth world country as a tourism destination. As a term, fourth world country refers to a tribe of an area that still maintains the authenticity of its…

A Preliminary Study of Yoga Tourism and its Prospects in Nepal

Article History Received 01 November 2019 Accepted 05 December 2019 Abstract This article attempts to reveal the prospects of yoga tourism in Nepal. Yoga is gaining popularity worldwide due to its…

Discovering the ‘heart’ in heartland tourism

    T. ChangFaith Oh
    Geography, Business
    Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography
  • 2021
ABSTRACT The emergence of the Singapore heartland as a tourist environment is explored. The ‘heartland’ refers to suburban residential neighbourhoods, often sited away from mainstream attractions and…

52 References

The master's narrative: Swami Sivananda and the transnational production of yoga

Over the past century, the set of ideas and practices known generically as yoga has broadened to accommodate a range of activities and practitioners quite different from those that characterized…

Defining ‘real India’: representations of authenticity in independent travel

As an alternative to the stereotypical mass tourism, independent travellers – travellers who travel for extended periods on low budgets while ostensibly avoiding formalized tourist activities and…

Authenticity as a concept in tourism research

This article discusses the uses of the concept of authenticity in tourism studies. In line with the constructivist perspective which aims to transcend the binary distinction between the authentic and…

A Postcolonial Imagination? Westerners Searching for Authenticity in India

This article looks at contemporary Westerners in the Indian city of Varanasi. The Westerners claim to appreciate authentic India and I argue that this authenticity refers to India's ancient,…

The perennial Western tourism representations of India that refuse to die.

Western media represents Th ird World destinations and communities as stagnant and primitive. Scholars have argued that these representations are fundamentally related to the practices of…

Positionality and Praxis: Fieldwork Experiences in Rural India

This paper provides a reflexive account of conducting fieldwork as a graduate student in the Sunderban area of West Bengal state, India, in the mid-1990s. Reflecting on my personal experiences of…

Yoga in the modern world : contemporary perspectives

Introduction (MARK SINGLETON AND JEAN BYRNE) Part I: Mapping the Terrain of Modern Yoga Studies 1. Modern Yoga: History and Forms (ELIZABETH DE MICHELIS) 2. Yoga Shivir: Methodological and Ethical…

‘Authenticity’ in Tourism Studies: Aprés la Lutte

This department has been specifically created to include findings of special significance and problem areas of subtle nuances in tourism research. Insightful contributions presenting the…
...

Related Papers

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers