#11990. Rethinking the politics of meditation: Practice, affect and ontology

November 2026publication date
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Sociology and Political Science;
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Abstract:
This article develops an ontological approach to study meditation in practice. Recognizing that social studies of meditation are dominated by critical and humanist standpoints, it suggests that the politics of meditation should not be indexed to hegemonic social forces – capitalism, neoliberalism, medicalization – but to what it can do to bodies, selves and environments through particular performances and engagements with non-humans. In order to develop this argument, the article delves into two popular practices of meditation – Vipassana, in the tradition of S. N. Goenka, and Mindfulness, according to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with meditators, as well as participant observation at meditation retreats and local practice groups. The article explores how these two articulations of Vipassana and Mindfulness allow practitioners to reconfigure how they perform their bodies and selves, leaning towards versions of subjectivity that contrast with paradigmatic versions of the modern self. It suggests that the ontological politics of meditation are multiple, involving a wide range of performances, effects and arrangements, requiring social scientists to take into account how meditation unfolds in practice in order to avoid totalizing generalizations.
Keywords:
Affect; Mindfulness; ontological politics; social studies of meditation; Vipassana

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