Creating a safe space for mindfulness: Non-white practitioner experiences in North America

Abstract

This ethnographic article contributes to anthropology scholarship examining whiteness's privilege, power, and investment in baseline understandings of the modern world. It examines critiques of institutional whiteness in North American mindfulness institutions made by practitioners of colour (PoC) – an emic self-identifier of participants. Based on ethnographic research among PoC mindfulness practitioner groups conducted in the United States between 2016 and 2021, the article illustrates several strategies some PoC develop – including establishing institutional structures and ritual practice – to counter the whiteness of meditation instructions and meditation centres.