Modern Yoganın Toplumsal Sınıf Ve Toplumsal Cinsiyet Bağlamında Nitel Analizi

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the social class of yoga in Turkey and secondly to reveal how the gender relations in the field are constructed and continued. In this context, the theoretical framework of the research was constituted by Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice and post-structuralist feminist theory. Whilst Bourdieu’s theory was used to describe the modern yoga in Turkey as a social field consisted by their own uinique values, everday life practices, their belief, briefly their habitus, and various forms of capital that can be converted to each other, post-structralist feminism was employed to explain the relationship between yoga and gender. The research conducted at the one of Turkey’s first yoga studio in Istanbul by using qualitative research method. Data was collected through participant observation of three months long, semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten instructors (five male and five female) and ten yoga practitioners (five male and five female) and field notes. The findings obtained by content analysis were presented under three categories: "An Alternative Lifestyle to Modern Times: Yoga As A Social Field", "Indispensable Doxa of Modern Yoga in Turkey" and "The Dominant Forms of Capital in the Field of Modern Yoga". According to the research findings, modern yoga in Turkey is a social field with its own values and lifestyles, where there are doxas produced by yoga practitioners and the body of capital, economic capital and cultural capital have an important place in the field. As a result, modern yoga in Turkey where stereotypical gender roles are reproduced and it has a close relationship with the capitalist consumption society.