This chapter examines theoretical debates about yoga and meditation in prisons, highlighting both the dangers of co-optation by oppressive power structures and the potential for emancipation. It reviews historical and contemporary commentaries showing how these practices can have insidious effects when taught to people targeted by unequal power. However, the chapter also points to newer, activist versions of yoga and meditation that foster individual self-cultivation that is critically thoughtful and politically challenging, suggesting that emancipatory possibilities coexist with risks.
Incarcerated individuals are repeatedly told that their situation is a product of their own choices and that self-improvement is the path to a more 'workable' reality. An ethnographic study of a meditation class inside a prison shows how this message is powerfully reinforced by volunteers, including chaplains. The researcher, acting as a participant-observer, found that many incarcerated people endorse this individual-responsibility narrative even while they also offer strong critiques of the systemic forces that shape their lives. The chapter illustrates the dominance of self-improvement stories in prison settings and the complex way prisoners can hold both personal accountability and systemic critique simultaneously.