Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry - Paperback

by Cathy-Mae Karelse (Author)

This book offers a timely commentary on the dominant narratives and norms that shape the mindfulness industry, namely whiteness, postracialism and neoliberalism. At the same time, an emergent movement rooted in indigenous, Global South and queer knowledges is decolonising mindfulness and decentring whiteness.

Back Jacket

'Karelse delivers a cracking Black Feminist call to decolonise "Wellbeing" with her forensic exposé of the dark side of the White Mindfulness industry and its colonial co-option of Eastern teachings for Western gain.'
Heidi Safia Mirza, Emeritus Professor, University College London

'Disrupting White Mindfulness offers a generous and critical lens of exploration, helping to free the ancient practice of mindfulness from systems of dominance, restoring the practice back to its original project of liberation for all who seek it.'
Lama Rod Owens, author of Love and Rage and co-author of Radical Dharma

Mindfulness is now everywhere in the West. Over the last four decades, the movement has exploded in the US and UK, and is now found everywhere from boardrooms and bedrooms to schools, prisons and hospitals. Yet popular mindfulness is infused in whiteness and late capitalism. This book reveals how its easy fit in Western society replicates existing social norms and dominant narratives: an essentially White Mindfulness reflects racialised institutional profiles and a largely White, middle-class audience.

Taking a critical look at this lucrative industry, Disrupting White Mindfulness explores the influences of neoliberalism and postracialism, and the invisible force of whiteness that marginalises and excludes People of the Global Majority from meaningful leadership and decision-making.

Engaging with decolonising initiatives rooted in embodied justice, Disrupting White Mindfulness offers a path and an invitation for a radically transformed mindfulness, one which moves away from whiteness to embrace solutions built on difference and on indigenous, queer, and global South perspectives.

Author Biography

Cathy-Mae Karelse (she/her) is a scholar-practitioner, changemaker and public speaker on issues of race, difference and belonging. She received a PhD from SOAS in 2019. Her work addresses all landscapes: the inner, outer and in-between. She is currently the DEI Lead at The Mindfulness Initiative and holds the position of Systems Change Lead at Resilience Capital Ventures. She works on policy and change programmes globally.