What Working in the Wellness Industry Means: The Example of Yoga Teachers in France

The rise of yogic practices – and, more generally, of mind-body practices aimed at improving well-being such as Qi Gong, Pilates, etc. – has led to the development of a large well-being "market." The (numerous) ordinary workers in this expanding sector and their working conditions are, on the whole, relatively little known and characterized.

Using the conceptual tools of the sociology of work and professions, this paper aims to show how the forms of work organization for yoga teachers – particularly their employment status – but also their personal (material and symbolic) resources play a decisive role in shaping the form that yoga instruction takes, using France as a case study. The argument will be supported by a collective survey conducted in France since 2020, drawing on statistical data (INJEP survey 2019-2020) and, above all, on a series of about twenty interviews. Our aim is to distance ourselves from the notion of the authenticity of yoga and its transmission—a perspective that seeks to link contemporary practices to or break them from presumed pure sources—in order to focus on what the multiple forms of yogic practices owe to the material, legal, and symbolic frameworks of the countries where they are disseminated.