Lori G. Beaman & Sonia Sikka 
Constructions of Self and Other in Yoga, Travel, and Tourism 
A Journey to Elsewhere

This volume considers the phenomenon of yoga travel as an instance of a broader genre of ‘spiritual travel’ involving journeys to places ‘elsewhere’, which are imagined to offer the possibility of profound personal transformation. These imaginings are tied up in a continued exoticization of the East, but they are not limited to that. Contributors identify various themes such as authenticity, suffering, space, material markers, and the idea of the ‘spiritual’, tracing how these ideas manifest in conceptions and fetishizations of ‘elsewhere.’  To deepen its analysis of this phenomenon, the book incorporates a wide range of disciplines including architecture, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, women’s studies, religious studies, and history. While the book’s primary focus is yoga and yoga travel, contributors offer up an array of other case studies. Chapters delve into the complex questions of agency and authenticity that accompany the concept of ‘spiritual travel’ and ideas of ‘elsewhere.’   

Table of Content

 Introduction: A Journey to Elsewhere; Lori G. Beaman and Sonia Sikka


1. Journeys That Go Nowhere: Eurocentric Prejudice and the Refusal to Hear; Sonia Sikka




2. Journey through the Third Space: Performing Aboriginal Identity through Historic Re-enactment Sites; Pamela Lee




3. Transformative Encounters: Destabilising Human/Animal and Nature/Culture Binaries through Cross-Cultural Engagement; Alexis Reichert




4. Eat, Pray, Love and Tourism Imaginaries; Ellen Badone




5. Displacing the Domestic: The Elsewhere of Transcendence; Meera Baindur




6. Urban Journey: A Woman’s Guidebook to Self-Discovery in Berlin; Despina Stratigakos




7. Religious Tourism through a Gender Lens; Mary Jo Neitz




8. Time, Space and the Fantasised Other in Me; Géraldine Mossière




9. A Ticket to Self-Discovery: Situating Yoga in Yoga Travel; Manvitha Singamsetty




10. A Ticket to Self-Discovery: Situating Yoga in Yoga Yoga Travel; Manvitha Singamsetty


11. Being on the Mat: Quasi-Sacred Spaces, ‘Exotic’ Other Places, and Yoga Studios in the ‘West’; Lisa Smith




12. Namaste: The Perilous Journey of ‘Real’ Yoga; Lori G. Beaman 

About the author

Lori G. Beaman is the Canada Research Chair in the Contextualization of Religion in a Diverse Canada and Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is also Principal Investigator of the Religion and Diversity Project, an international research team. 





Sonia Sikka is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her recent research involves comparative studies of religious identity and secularism in Canada, India, and the United States. Her publications include
Living with Religious Diversity (2015) and M
ulticulturalism and Religious Identity (2014) (both edited with Lori G. Beaman), as well as
Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference (2011).