Can Mindfulness really change the world? The political character of meditative practices

Abstract

Mindfulness–the Buddhist derived meditative practice of cultivating attention to the present moment–has become a secular global phenomenon. Analysis of Mindfulness’s political significance remains rare, despite its take-up by political actors and popular critiques of commodified, instrumentalised ‘McMindfulness’. This article argues that Mindfulness exemplifies how technologies of the self occupy a key, contested space between reproducing and challenging contemporary power relations. Critiques of McMindfulness are extended via themes of de-politicization and the construction of neoliberal subjectivity. But more cognitively focused accounts of meditation practice, and wider critical-theoretical concepts, are then used to reconstruct Mindfulness, indicating its expansive political potential. ‘Micro Mindfulness’ is shown to enhance the neglected area of individual agency within deliberative democratic theory. Further, ‘Macro Mindfulness’ resonates with the radical democratic understanding of political subjectivity and ‘democracy to come’. Most expansively, Mindfulness is a resource for developing critical consciousness and even prefiguring alternative futures.