#AccessibleYoga for whom? The non-performativity of accessibility and inclusion on Instagram

Abstract

ABSTRACT Yoga has a long contentious history of accessibility and inclusion. Scholars and practitioner-activists today call for inclusive yoga; however, even within seemingly inclusive yoga campaigns in digital spaces, depictions of the practice often exclude bodies of difference. We use Sara Ahmed’s theorizing of non-performatives to explore #AccessibleYoga and #InclusiveYoga and understand how possibilities for bodies of difference are profuse or sparse on Instagram. Layering our analysis with Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s feminist disability theory of misfitting, we consider yoga’s potential to create places for bodily affirmation in the future of yoga worlds. For our study, we applied a reflexive thematic analysis and named the following themes: the non-performativity of language, permissible diversity, and cripping yoga(?). We found diversity at the exclusion of disability, but also observed creative use of props that nods to the potential cripping of yoga. We interrogate the non-performativities of language within yoga and explore relational approaches to access.