The Yoga Studies Dispositif: The Discursive Study of Religion and the Birth and Development of a Discipline

In this paper I provide a preliminary account of the Yoga Studies Dispositif, that is, that specific apparatus of knowledge production, legitimization, and dissemination that has allowed the birth and development of the discipline of “modern yoga research” as an autonomous field of study and, in turn, has asserted the study of modern forms of yoga as its primary object of inquiry. More specifically, and in line with the con- structionist epistemology taken by the “discursive study of religion” approach, I focus on the processes of boundary-work and boundary-object creation of modern yoga research and argue that these are the most influential discursive strategies adopted in the formation of this new discipline. Following on this premise, I contend that similar processes of demarcation and conceptual production are also pivotal to the birth and development of other sub-disciplines within the study of religion