The School of Divinity will welcome Marissa Clarke to the Graduate School in September. Image Marissa Clarke Marissa is a recipient of an AHRC scholarship through the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities. Marissa will research the lived religious experiences of yoga practitioners in order to rethink the phenomena of neoliberal yoga brands. Her work will contribute to theorising the sociology of religion in neoliberal society through the lens of yogic practices and practitioners, with the broader aim of challenging the conceptions of commercialised yoga that confirm pre-existing racial, religious and gender hierarchies. Marissa comes to the School with an outstanding background in Marketing. She will apply her insider status as a yoga teacher and practitioner to her study, alongside her previous experience of project managing an NHS funded academic evaluation on yoga for anxiety, depression and stress. Marissa will use her SGSAH award to undertake additional training in videography, film making and podcasting to share the narratives from her research in an accessible manner. Marissa will be supervised by Drs Steve Sutcliffe and Arkotong Longkumer. Their research interests include the intersection of ‘alternative’ and ‘indigenous’ beliefs and practices with transnational economies and cultural consumption, and how this has generated new appropriations and interpretations of traditional and ‘indigenous’ practices. Their expertise supports Marissa's interest in the liminal status of postural yoga in ‘western’ societies between fitness/wellbeing and new spiritual practice. Links Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Arts and Humanities Research Council website Dr Steve Sutcliffe's staff profile Dr Aroktong Longkummer's staff profile This article was published on 2024-03-19
