Flexible Selves in Flexible Times? Yoga and Neoliberal Subjectivities in Istanbul

Abstract

This article adds to contemporary analyses of neoliberal subjectivities by focusing on middle-class yoga practitioners in Istanbul, Turkey. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it questions the dominant interpretation of yoga as a form of neoliberal governance and suggests that within the nexus of neoliberal globalisation, autocratisation and precarisation, practices that are often labeled ‘lifestyle consumption’ might provide individuals with the discursive tools to question entrepreneurial norms. Expanding the geographical scope of existing research as well as providing a theoretically informed analysis of empirical data, the article makes an original contribution to understandings of neoliberal subjectivities by bridging work on neoliberal subjectivities and lifestyle politics.

Keywords

lifestyles neoliberalism new middle class qualitative analysis subjectivity Turkey yoga

Much has been written in the last decade about neoliberal subjectivities as part of regimes of biopolitical self-governance. Scholars in the Foucauldian tradition, conceiving neoliberalism as a mode of governing rationality, have explored its productive capacities, emphasising the production of new subjectivities, specifically an ‘entrepreneurial subject’ (Brown, 2015; Du Gay, 1996; Foucault, 2004; McNay, 2009; Rose, 1999). This article speaks to this predominantly theoretical literature by examining how subjectivities are articulated under neoliberalism among a subset of ‘new middle class’ individuals in Istanbul, Turkey,¹ focusing on a lifestyle practice, modern postural yoga. Based on interviews with yoga practitioners, supplemented by blog posts, it examines empirically whether or not discourse rooted in contemporary yogic practices is used to contest neoliberal norms in a non-western setting.

Yoga, a spiritual, philosophical and postural tradition originating in India, was popularised in the West in the 1960s, when it became most closely identified with postural physical practices, especially the performance of āsanas (yogic postures), with an emphasis on the physical benefits of yoga and its helpfulness in managing stress (Smith, 2007: 28). ‘Modern postural yoga’ (De Michelis, 2004) has become a global phenomenon, expanding particularly in developed countries and cosmopolitan milieus. In Turkey, it became more popular from the mid-2000s onward. Today, it is relatively easy to find a yoga class in Istanbul; there are yoga schools in multiple neighbourhoods as well as countless yoga teachers, blogs, journals, workshops, retreats and festivals.

This popularisation of yoga along with other physical recreational activities like running and cycling fits into the narrative of changing lifestyles among new middle classes in developing countries (Koning, 2006; O’Dougherty, 2002). These lifestyle changes have been studied by scholars focusing on consumption, who underline how they work as differentiation mechanisms. Yet overall, scholars tend to trivialise lifestyles, conceptualising them as ‘self-centered, largely individualistic projects of personal expression and affirmation’ (Haenfler et al., 2012: 2). In the case of yoga, scholarship also emphasises how modern postural yoga can work as a form of neoliberal governmentality, reproducing neoliberal norms (Godrej, 2017; Schnaebele, 2013; Smith and Atencio, 2017).

Taking inspiration from research that questions sharp distinctions between lifestyles and social movements (Haenfler et al., 2012; Salmenniemi, 2019; Simmons, 2018), as well as research that underlines the intersection of consumption, lifestyles and the politics of everyday life (Wahlen and Laamanen, 2015), I start this article with the suspicion that this trivialisation might create a blind spot, which might be more acute in a setting like Turkey where increasing autocratisation makes it challenging for parts of the middle class to participate in political and social movements. I contend that within the nexus of neoliberal globalisation, autocratisation and precarisation, practices like yoga that are labeled ‘lifestyle consumption’ might provide their participants with means to cope with processes of precarisation, as well as with discursive tools to challenge neoliberal norms. Acknowledging the ways such lifestyle practices resonate with neoliberal governmentality, I point to the complexity involved in discourses and experiences associated with them and assert that it would be an oversimplification to interpret what is going on here as solely the reproduction of neoliberal entrepreneurial selves.

The article is organised as follows. After a discussion of the Turkish case and a review of the literature regarding neoliberal subjectivities and modern yoga, I present an analysis of key discourses I observed in interviews and within the larger yoga network. I conclude with a discussion of the role of yoga as a community and site of contention in Istanbul.

Background: Neoliberalism, Middle Classes and Insecurity in Turkey

When it comes to middle-class lifestyles in Turkey, the neoliberal economic restructuring starting in the 1980s is seen as a turning point, ushering an influx of western companies, media and brands into Turkey, creating a consumer-goods market environment different from the import-substitution years, and with that a consumer culture. Neoliberal globalisation also transformed the class structure of the country, fragmenting middle classes as those who joined globally integrated and fast-growing sectors saw their prospects rise, while the prospects and status of the salaried middle classes were reduced (Rutz and Balkan, 2009).

For the new middle classes, consumption (in residential and food choices, clothing, music and arts, and recreational practices) became an arena in which they could differentiate themselves from other classes (Bali, 2002). In the following decades, the urban transformation policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) governments, the mortgage market and availability of credit through individual credit cards supported these new consumption practices. Along with new shopping malls and gated communities in cities like Istanbul and Ankara, this era saw the proliferation of boutiques, new cafes and restaurants in higher income neighbourhoods, sport centres and lifestyle coaching, all pointing to aestheticised consumption choices that exclude lower middle classes due to high prices (Üstüner and Holt, 2010). These practices, however, were not homogenous even among the upper middle classes; they varied, for example, concomitant to levels of cultural capital and Islamic/secular background (Karademir-Hazır, 2014; Rankin et al., 2014; Üstüner and Holt, 2010). Rankin et al. (2014) point to the educated secular new middle classes who embrace a more urban and globalised culture as ‘engaged cosmopolitans’. The respondents in this article can be argued to belong to this group.

One important criticism of the focus on the rise of ‘new middle classes’ and their consumption practices is that it has concealed processes of precarisation and proletarianisation that were taking place concurrently (Kurtuluş, 2014).² Scholars have underlined the detrimental effects on middle classes as deregulation and flexible labour arrangements became the new norm, and unions were obliterated (Acar, 2010; Akbaş, 2013). Furthermore, ongoing neoliberal policies resulted in multiple economic crises and especially after the 2009 crisis, the unemployment rate of educated, white-collar workers increased (see Bora et al., 2012: 51 for a discussion). Along with unemployment, changes in the structure of work – increasing flexibility and lack of regulation, especially in newer creative sectors – contributed to the precarisation of new university graduates.

After the second term of the AKP government, the economic transformation described above was intertwined with a process of autocratisation in an increasingly volatile political environment. Within the last decade, Turkey has seen a massive protest wave (the Gezi protests of 2013) which was violently repressed, multiple highly consequential elections, a constitutional referendum, several bombings in Istanbul and Ankara, the ending of the peace process, a coup attempt and a state of emergency. Within the context of securitisation and degradation of rule of law, the conservative populist AKP and its leader Erdoğan targeted the daily practices of the secular urban classes, adding a new layer of insecurity and discontent to their lives.

Against this background of neoliberalisation and autocratisation, yoga became increasingly popular in Turkey. Yoga classes were first offered in a very limited fashion in fitness centres at the very end of the 1990s. The first yoga schools followed in the early 2000s in Istanbul. The two most well-known institutions, Yogaşala (in Etiler) and Cihangir Yoga (in Cihangir), were opened in 2001 and 2006 respectively. The visibility of yoga grew exponentially then, especially after 2007.

In the next section, I will discuss how existing research on yoga, along with other ‘happiness industries’, explains the way they contribute to neoliberal governance through individualised regimes of self-management.

Modern Yoga and the Production of Neoliberal Subjectivities

From the perspective of researchers who conceive neoliberalism as a mode of governing rationality, neoliberalism is understood as a hegemonic process that ‘extends a specific formulation of economic values, practices and metrics to every dimension of human life’ (Brown, 2015: 30). As a ‘generalised normativity’, it transforms every arena of life into a space of rational decision making full of choices, shaped and regulated by the values of the market. Moreover, neoliberalism ‘tends to structure and organise not only the actions of the governing but also the conduct of the governed themselves and even their self-conception according to principles of competition, efficiency, and utility’ (Wacquant, 2012: 70). That is, as it transforms every arena of life, neoliberalism reinforces the production and regulation of a certain kind of individual: an ‘entrepreneurial subject’ who is ‘autonomous, prudent, responsible and calculating’ (Godrej, 2017: 778). This ‘free’ subject is controlled through her own freedom to choose: an entrepreneur in every aspect of life, rationally deliberating about courses of action, making choices and bearing full responsibility for their consequences (Brown, 2015).

The Foucauldian perspective has generated careful attention to the complex and heterogeneous web of technologies through which this transformation operates. Rose (1999: 213–228), for example, underlines the rise of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, along with less expensive and less intensive therapeutic techniques, as ‘technologies of individuality’ that address and constitute a modern, autonomous self, free to choose in a contractual society. Similarly, research on self-care industries and movements like positive psychology and the self-esteem movement point to how these new discourses work in accordance with neoliberal rationality (Binkley, 2015; Cruikshank, 1999). A key aspect of these technologies and discourses is the ‘responsibilisation’ of individuals to manage their own affairs, ‘technisation’ of one’s well-being and an emphasis on self-investment and self-optimisation (Godrej, 2017: 780). ‘Self-help’ and ‘self-development’ techniques address people as individuals with the potential to shape themselves to be more productive and more marketable, promising to cultivate and optimise those potentials.

It is easy to perceive how contemporary ‘lifestyle’ choices, including modern postural yoga, can fit into neoliberal governmentality, helping to recreate, reproduce and maintain a neoliberal self. Yoga, in its various traditions, involves a self-improvement methodology, and can be framed as a ‘technology of the self’: a practice that ‘permit[s] individuals to effect operations of their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’ (Foucault, cited in Godrej, 2017: 780). The practice of yoga, along with all its classes, magazines, workshops and retreats, can then be interpreted as parts of a web of technologies, fabricating and maintaining forms of social subjectivity and self-government.

Godrej (2017: 781) discusses this in detail, looking at how contemporary forms of yoga, through a progressive, teleological project of individual self-fashioning, self-improvement and optimisation, use discourses of self-investment, individual choice and responsibility to maximise human capacity. This trope, she explains, is easily available in yoga magazines, websites and media (Godrej, 2017: 782–784). Markula (2014) demonstrates similar points through an analysis of the covers of Yoga Magazine in the USA, and others (Schnaebele, 2013; Smith and Atencio, 2017) draw links between yoga and neoliberal values in western settings. Yet Markula (2014: 165) also reminds readers of a socially conscious precedent, and both Godrej (2017: 787–791) and Smith and Atencio (2017: 1182) discuss yoga’s more critical and socially aware interpretive possibilities.

In fact, there are multiple points to consider that might complicate this perceived relationship between neoliberal rationalities and modern postural yoga. First, subjectivities are produced not on empty slates, but in specific locations and times, through multifaceted historical processes. Scholars whose empirical research focuses on lived experiences of neoliberal subjectivities are careful to avoid absolute accounts and emphasise how their subjects draw from a range of discourses (Scharff, 2016; Tuğal, 2012; Türem, 2015). For example, Tuğal (2012: 67) bases his work on neoliberal subjectivity in Istanbul on Laclau’s (1977) insight that ‘actually experienced discourses are composed of many elements, only a few of which are necessary to the integrity of that discourse and others that can be potentially disarticulated from this discursive composite and articulated to competing discourses’. It is this composite nature of actually existing discourses that allows for different mixtures in particular geographies, as well as for imperfections and frictions emerging and existing within them.

Second and relatedly, contemporary yoga contains an enormous range of ideas, claims and practices, which are varied in their real or asserted relationship to similarly diverse elements in a long and heterogeneous history. Based on a multivalent tradition, it offers a plethora of ideas and experiences that participants can encounter and draw on in a variety of ways. As such, it is not obvious which discursive elements individuals will use or how they will use them under different historical circumstances.

Methodology

I rely on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 19 yoga participants based in Istanbul, the economic and cultural centre as well as the most populous and globally connected city in Turkey. Istanbul hosts the majority of Turkey’s white-collar professionals and caters to international middle-class consumption trends and needs.

To reach respondents I used snowballing with multiple starting points. The interviews lasted an hour-and-a-half to two hours on average and consisted of multiple parts. The biggest chunk dealt with respondents’ life histories and experiences with yoga, including detailed questions on how they started and continued practising as well as their motivations and experiences. These interviews were recorded and transcribed. In analysing them, my approach was similar to Scharff’s (2016: 111), as I wanted to explore subjectivities as constituted through narrative. I looked for recurrent themes and discursive patterns as respondents talked about their lives and yoga in order to get a sense of the repertoire of meanings they use, specifically with an eye towards themes that relate to entrepreneurial subjectivity, such as choice, rational and calculative thinking, self-care and self-improvement.

This article relies primarily on these interviews, which provide a sense of what yoga means to respondents and how it fits into and informs their emotional worlds. However, I also followed Turkish-language blogs written by teachers, picking blog pieces (26 in total) systematically from websites of teachers whose names were mentioned in interviews. I used these to identify recurrent themes, to situate the interviews within the broader discursive field shaped by practitioners in Turkey, and to deepen my understanding of some of the themes respondents mentioned. I also interviewed two long-term and well-established yoga teachers about the development of yoga in Istanbul.

During the multiple years I worked on this research, I continued practising yoga, and attended classes, as well as multiple workshops and retreats. I spent time with dedicated yoga practitioners socially and my observations from these encounters informed this article. That I am a relatively fit, secular, educated female with links to the yoga world in Istanbul helped my access. Given the small number of people I talked to, I cannot claim generalisability of this research to the larger world of Turkish yoga; indeed, there is the possibility that my contacts have limited me to a certain subset of this population. Insights from this group, however, can inform discussion on other communities formed around middle-class lifestyles (such as those focused on therapeutic practices or vegetarianism).

Respondents

Of the 19 respondents I interviewed, 17 were female and two were male. This large gender discrepancy in the sample reflects the very female-dominant yoga environment I encountered in Istanbul. It also partially parallels other studies showing that yoga practitioners ‘tend to be white, married, middle aged, well-educated, and employed women’ (Smith and Atencio, 2017: 1168; see also Kern, 2012: 32), though my majority female sample is largely non-married and younger. Respondents were between the ages of 26 and 63 (with the 63-year-old as an outlier; a majority of respondents, 11, were in their 30s). They were highly educated, all university graduates, 10 with post-graduate degrees, from a mixture of fields.³ They all lived in Istanbul’s upper-middle or middle-class neighbourhoods. Nine were freelancing or attempting to switch to freelancing, and three were unemployed at the time of the interviews, while the rest were employed in various fields such as banking, academia and insurance (see the online appendix for respondent profiles).

Yoga, Narratives of Self and Contesting Neoliberalism in Istanbul

Searching for the Self via the Body

Respondents in this research all encountered yoga as adults, during college or later, having heard about it from friends, through magazines or while studying or travelling abroad. They recount multiple reasons for trying out yoga, revolving mostly around a concern for their bodies and their health: an attempt at shaping or moving the body, at ‘relaxation’, but also to address concerns such as spine or back problems as well as ongoing and debilitating depression. This is not surprising considering that yoga is popularly depicted as a tool for taking care of the body and preventing illness as part of the fitness and self-care industry (Markula, 2014). Overwhelmingly, respondents describe their experience with yoga as a ‘turning point’ in their lives, a kind of transformation. This transformation is set in motion through what Smith (2007) refers to as ‘radical engagement’ with the body via regular āsana practice. Parallel to Smith (2007: 37), respondents describe this experience as an overwhelming and revelatory process of discovery that led them to realise that they ‘in fact had bodies’. The phrase ‘I started to feel muscles that I did not know existed before’ was used more than once in interviews:

For the first time in my life, I was like, ‘Whoa, there is such a place in my body?’ For 25 years I’ve had this body, which I’ve almost never moved, and suddenly you are getting into this different thing. When the class ended I was totally shaken. Wow, there is this thing and I have never experienced it before. I had been . . . so separate from my body. (#18)

This engagement with the body is described as a newly discovered relationship with an embodied self that is beyond the rational-analytical mind. In these narratives, the phrase ‘being in the mind’ (zihinde olmak or zihinde kalmak) almost always implies a sense of confusion, of being lost in a muddle of thoughts, but also of ‘not being in the moment’, being lost between the past and the future. The self-awareness that respondents try to attain through yoga, however, is about being in the here and now (anda olmak), and paying attention. Modern yoga classes regularly call for students to turn their attention inward, to the movement of the breath, the movement of the body, the tiny adjustments the body makes as it moves, as well as the feelings, emotions and thoughts that emerge in relation to these movements of body and breath.⁴ Respondents describe this practice of ‘turning inward’ and paying attention to an embodied self as ‘getting to know oneself’, ‘getting closer to oneself’ and ‘establishing a link with oneself’:

I was always in my mind, no instinct [içgüdü] at all. [. . .] You know how people talk about how they felt this and that, I couldn’t imagine it [. . .] But after yoga, these started to come out. I started to hear the voices that were coming from within. I started to hear myself more. (#12)

As an attempt at self-improvement and self-maximisation, this close engagement with the body can be interpreted as a technology of the self. However, more than anything, it is couched as a search for self-awareness, a quest for a form of truth – ‘separating truth from what is not truth’ (#13). This quest for ‘truth’ reverberates through a number of the interviews.

Learning to Go with the Flow

One of the dominant themes that connects these ideas of being in the moment, inward focus and awareness is that of ‘flow’ (akış). This is a word that is used in classes to describe movement, but ‘letting things flow’ (akışına bırakmak) and ‘going with the flow’ (akışıyla gitmek) are also used to explain how respondents take steps, go after opportunities, ideas, things as they emerge, spontaneously, without strategic planning beforehand. For example, one respondent, going through intensive doula training, tells me:

Things just happened that way. They flowed that way. If you’d asked me few years ago if I would go into doula training, I would have said absolutely not. [. . .] But one of my students got pregnant and while I was working with her she said, ‘I wish you were my doula’. And somehow that got me interested. (#16)

This idea of ‘going with the flow’ evokes a mode where one makes decisions not through rational thinking, strategic planning or calculative logic but through intuition and the momentum generated by events and activities. Respondents communicate these ideas through the use of natural metaphors like ‘going where the wind takes one’ and ‘flowing like a river (or water)’, but also through concepts like love, connection, attraction and chance that emphasise the unplanned, non-rational and incalculable elements of decision making.⁵ For example, this respondent explains why she took a teacher training course: ‘It was because of that feeling of love. I got really excited, my heart was beating so fast. It was an unknown area for me [. . .] I have never been in such a spot, in such a moment’ (#12).

Respondents argue that the regular practice of yoga puts them into this mindset of flow, and habituates them to choose certain paths not by calculative, rational logic, but as a response to the momentum of life itself. As they repeatedly state, the regular and disciplined physical practice that is called for in yoga is not solely an attempt to attain a healthier body, to perform harder and more complex āsanas; it is also about developing a mindset that does not grapple with worldly things through cognition.⁶

Flow as a Discursive Tool within the Neoliberal Market

There are multiple ways to think about the language of flow (relatedly, being in the moment) in these narratives of transformation. As argued by Sennett (1998, 2006) as well as Ringrose and Walkerdine (2008), the neoliberal globalised market demands a subject who is capable of constant reinvention. The flexible and autonomous subject herself has the responsibility to ‘negotiate, choose, and adapt in order to cope successfully with constant change in work, income, and lifestyle and with constant insecurity’; and ‘containing this kind of subject who can manage ongoing processes of fracturing and fragmentation is a key task for globalised economies which are no longer willing to provide long-term form of support’ (Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008: 229). While psychology and practices of counselling and therapy articulate a discourse that builds up the fiction of the autonomous subject, they also operate as restorative practices that help patients adapt successfully to change and instability (Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008: 229).

For many of my respondents, who live and work under conditions of ambivalence due to political and economic instability, this orientation towards flow or being in the moment, which emphasises flexibility and avoids long-term planning and attachment to goals, can be seen as a necessity, a tool for coping that provides positive ways to interpret one’s life story and allows one to function as an individual, autonomous self within the market. This is exemplified by the following quote from a yoga teacher who is trying to make ends meet in Istanbul:

I don’t think I would feel secure about my future if I was working here or there, in this position or that in a firm. So I am trying to let life flow. You need to be, you need to flow with this uncertainty (bilinmezlik). This is the formula for it and I am trying to teach myself that – I am not looking for any kind of security. (#11)

When respondents use words like ‘surrender’ (teslimiyet) or ‘acceptance’ (kabullenmek) along with flow to describe the state of mind they have acquired through yoga, some of their examples concern the ability to manage the demands of work life. As they explain how their practice helps to achieve concentration, health and physical pliability, some present yoga as a tool for dealing with the physical and psychological stresses and demands of work, and for working on the body to make it more productive: ‘Physically, when I do this, a lot of my pain goes away, I relax. I need that relaxation, that space, in order to produce better. I don’t want to work, do my job, with a lot of pain’ (#14). In these instances, yoga comes close to being a technology that produces docile and productive bodies, as Sharma (2014: 84) argues, serving as a tool of ‘recalibration’ that makes the sedentary life of professionals more bearable.

However, while allowing respondents to cope with the neoliberal market and decisions they are forced to make (as well as their consequences), these narratives are used to criticise these conditions and provide tools for alternative interpretations of life. Instead of ‘overcoming alienation at work’ to ‘bind the worker to work’ (Sharma, 2014: 105), sometimes yoga leads to further alienation, and in fact, to an exit: dropping out of the corporate world.

Neoliberal Work, Dissonance and Dropping Out

The majority of respondents in corporate settings mention dissatisfaction with their professional lives, citing stress, lack of autonomy, coercion, exploitation and resulting feelings of frustration, alienation and lack of motivation. These frustrations are not worded as personal failures to live up to an imagined ‘successful professional’, but rather as problems with the ‘system’, linked to private sector conditions in Turkey that generate insecurity, competition and pressure for productivity.

Maybe surprisingly, a few respondents who are over 30 have dropped out of full-time employment in order to create new living/working arrangements after what they describe as a drawn-out process of reflection linked to yoga. The way they explain what for them has been a challenging move resonates within other interviews and is linked to the practices of truth-seeking mentioned above. For example, this respondent explains her resignation from a major telecommunications corporation to sell homemade food and teach yoga:

At one point these performance systems, criteria, those rules you have to follow within the corporate life, they started feeling so absurd, so empty. It started feeling like the stage of a theatre, and I decided I didn’t want to be part of that theatre. [. . .] You might be talking to someone and they pretend they don’t hear you. Things like that get normalised. Or someone ripping someone off (kazık atması) gets normalised. That started feeling so fake, so disturbing. I did not belong there. That is what I felt. (#13)

Similarly, a lawyer who left a respectable law firm relates how she was having a difficult time combining her yoga practice with her employment: ‘I did not fit into the system and I didn’t fit because of yoga. That is, yoga showed me that I did not have to fit’ (#7). They describe a process where the value system and practices of yoga create dissonance and unease within their professional environment, and/or help them put into words the discomfort they are feeling. This dissonance is expressed in ethical terms – as not living or telling one’s truth – and feeds into various forms of (classed) work refusal (Shukaitis, 2014): dropping out, or not pursuing jobs, or individual critique and discussion of work conditions with others.

These themes are echoed in narratives of younger respondents who have not experienced anything that resembles a ‘career’ or a professional life from which they could ‘drop out’. Having finished university, they have jumped from one short-term job to another, in a precarious existence, largely dissatisfied with their working lives (mostly in the creative sector). While recounting their employment histories, they regularly communicate feelings of disappointment, alienation, depression and loss of self-esteem. Some turn to yoga for work, which introduces new tensions involving monetisation of yoga and self-marketing. While attempting to negotiate these tensions, they nevertheless emphasise that they are now living closer to ‘their truth’.

In all these cases, the professional life, the cornerstone and definitional marker of middle-class identity, provides neither expertise, nor security, nor feelings of self-achievement and satisfaction. One reason why these individuals with high levels of cultural capital are drawn to alternative networks and experiment with new modes of living might be this dissatisfaction in their professional lives, which compels them to seek expertise and fulfilment elsewhere, while also allowing them to prioritise their values.

Looking for Expertise: Discipline and Devotion

That respondents invest significant psychological energy into their yoga practice becomes especially visible when they talk about why and how they have continued with yoga through and around themes of discipline, seeking knowledge and getting deeper. Respondents strongly emphasise how they value the discipline and work ethic they found in yoga. They talk about their desire for ‘deepening’ (derinleşmek) and ‘devotion’ (kendini adamak), which they connect to themes of truth-seeking and remaining in the moment.

Discipline and self-mastery, which are foundational to yoga practice (De Michelis, 2008: 18), are the yoga principles ‘most likely to resonate with the responsible, self-governing subjects of neoliberalism’ (Godrej, 2017: 784). Articulated as a need to ‘get better’, to ‘make progress’ or to differentiate oneself in a market of competitors, ‘deepening’ and ‘seeking knowledge’ can be parts of a teleological and strategic worldview. These frames, in fact, do appear in interviews. Some respondents talk about the sense of success they get from seeing their progress, some talk about how they do not like to ‘waste’ their non-work time and choose continuous learning in the form of taking more classes and workshops. These workshops and training emerge as ‘investments’ in oneself as well as forms of distinction. Moreover, for respondents who turn to yoga as waged work, the expertise signified by workshops and training is narrated as a necessity, differentiating them in a yoga market full of competitors.

Yet these are neither the only nor the main ways in which respondents talk of discipline and ‘deepening’ in yoga. Overwhelmingly, yoga practice is narrated as a craft – a detail-oriented process of working on something over and over again, with focus and devotion, as a process of self-examination and without obsessing over the end product. In fact, for many what differentiates this practice is that it is not goal- or future-oriented, that there is no end-point to reach.⁷ The valorisation of discipline is articulated together with themes of devotion without expectation, negation of an ego-driven goal orientation and rejection of competitiveness and perfection. As stated in a blog passage: ‘Yoga is not a race, it does not entail competition and comparison. [. . .] You don’t force yourself as if you are in a race.’

Respondents strongly distance themselves from a competition- and productivity-oriented work ethic; this is visible in the ways they talk about the kinds of yoga schools and teachers they seek in their search for discipline and expertise, and in the ways yoga teachers talk about the work environment they try to create. Criticisms of other yoga teachers and practitioners often consist of denouncing the monetisation of yoga, taking issue with a narrow focus on the physical, and condemning a ‘greedy’ concern with success as a goal, be it achieving the perfect form in an āsana, running after new workshops or teaching the perfect class. As pointed out above, these narratives are riddled with tensions, as respondents question and criticise their own motives and practices in their involvement in the yoga market.

Yet many also underline how they deliberately choose to work less and make less money, as this allows them to arrange their lives according to their priorities. This is, for example, how a respondent talks about her work schedule as a yoga teacher after she dropped out of freelancing in photography production because she had to be at sets ‘7/24, at 5.00 a.m.’ and ‘she did not want her life to be that’:

We make very little money. In a studio, group class, you make very little money. I mean, if I were to work for six days teaching two or three classes a day filling my days full-time, then I would make good money. That would be fabrication. I can’t teach a class like that. You can’t attend to everyone like that. Plus, I need to have my practice. [. . .] So I teach less. I don’t make much money but I get by. (#9)

Being in the Now: On Slowing Down and Decreasing Consumption

Minimising competition, downplaying productivity and not striving for perfection also means going at one’s own pace. A shift of temporality – articulated through the themes of slowing down (yavaşlamak), staying/stopping (durmak), in conjunction with being in the moment/focus (anda olmak) and peace (huzur/sakinlik) – is set in opposition to the temporality of a world in constant motion, which pushes individuals to adopt a faster pace, to strive for more, in contrast to what respondents seek in yoga: deepening and focus.

Of course, neither a focus on time nor an attempt to slow down necessarily amounts to resistance against neoliberal logic. As Sharma (2014: 21) argues, slowness has become a new, alternative pace that all kinds of people are supposed to choose. The notion that someone is in control of one’s time might be considered a technology of the self (Sharma, 2014: 65), enhanced with commodified technologies and the labour of others (2014: 53) – in this case yoga and yoga teachers. Again, yoga becomes a means of recalibration, pacifying the pace of life to produce a different experience of time, and as such overcoming the limits of one’s body as well as alienation at work, making one’s life more palatable.

However, these narratives of time and pace are interlaced with narratives of anti-consumption and, as indicated above, a strong emphasis on distancing from a productivity-oriented work ethic. The goal is not expressed as earning more/doing more/becoming a better self or even ‘living up to one’s potential’ – but as doing less. This not only includes, but necessitates decreasing consumption. Those who have dropped out of work or those who freelance explain that they realised they could decrease their consumption once they had more time, and say they now strive to work and consume less. For example, one respondent describes how, after dropping out of her career, she thought she would not be able to survive by teaching yoga, given how expensive Istanbul is:

But I realised I actually did not need that much money. They give you all that money [at work] so that you can have a certain standard of living. So that you can eat in certain places, and drink expensive drinks, eat expensive food and get expensive plane tickets for those very limited vacation days. But now that I am home, I spend so much less, because I eat at home. I don’t take taxis if I don’t really need to. Because I am not in a hurry, that is how I schedule my day. So your expenses go down automatically. (#13)

Yoga as a Community of Solidarity and Discontent

These issues are fervently discussed and tips are shared within friendship networks formed around yoga, which provide a space for critiques and concerns. While yoga is inner-focused and teachers emphasise the importance of having a self-practice, the significance of sangha – the community of yoga practitioners – is frequently mentioned on blogs, and many respondents underline how they found a community in yoga. In this article I have focused on the discursive threads in respondents’ talk; yet this talk is grounded in and shared within a community of practitioners. Moreover, through individual practitioners, yoga networks are interlinked with other alternative communities in Istanbul, such as other spiritual movements, slow food/vegetarianism and the ecological movement. Thus, they echo the political critiques that are put forward by these movements.⁸

As Turkey became more authoritarian during the course of this research, with the government pushing a conservative neoliberal agenda, the networks respondents built through yoga afforded them solidarity and a space with a shared language. For some yoga, which is primarily depicted in literature as a form of individualist consumption, extended ‘beyond individual activity to bridging individualism and cooperation, building bonds of solidarity and cooperation’ (Wahlen and Laamanen, 2015: 401). These bonds produced a sociality that contributes to the reproduction of various norms involving anti- (or ethical) consumption, voluntary simplification and anti-competitiveness, as well as forms of work refusal, by providing affection, support, belonging and sometimes care.

One can argue that together these practices form a politics of refusal. Within neoliberal economies, sites of government and points of contact can also be sites for the possibility of refusal (Ball, 2016). The yoga community seems to function as a site of contention where participants may challenge dominant cultural codes; it may also serve as a form of ‘pre-figurative politics’ (Breines, 1989), which attempts to create on a small scale social relations and norms that (it is hoped) will characterise society at large in the future. In fact, at least for some respondents ‘practicing and embodying particular ethical and moral values in daily life’ can be a political act, ‘giving one a sense of agency amidst political disillusionment’ (Salmenniemi, 2019: 416).

Both Haenfler et al.’s (2012: 13) and Salmenniemi’s (2019: 416) emphasis on political disillusionment is crucial here as this turn to community and personal politics seems linked to feelings of frustration and lack of self-efficacy with regard to formal politics. Respondents of this research, even those with a history of political engagement, all narrate how deeply estranged and powerless they feel regarding their role in public and political life in Turkey over and over again. Speaking of current political realities, this respondent says:

I pretend like they don’t exist. I am not in a country where I have the power to change anything [. . .] There is a whole other game going on out there. A whole other dimension. It has its own rules, its own functioning. And I don’t know its language. (#14)

It is especially telling that almost all respondents were active during the Gezi protests of 2013, whose anti-neoliberal and proto-communist tendencies were underlined by researchers (Tuğal, 2015). The Gezi protests met with heavy repression and became a turning point after which the ongoing autocratisation picked up speed and new groups, including secularists, feminists and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ), were identified as enemies of the state (Arslanalp and Erkmen, 2020: 958–960). This is strongly reflected in interviews, as multiple respondents narrate how they turned ‘inwards’ and pulled back from public life the more they felt threatened by what was going on in the country:

But those people dying at Gezi, they made me feel like this life I am trying to create piece by piece is so worthless in this country. [. . .] I feel like an ant. I am worthless. I can be squashed and killed. [. . .] No one is going to protect me when I try to voice my ideas – I know that. So I need to decide whether I am going to risk this life that I am trying to create painstakingly, or whether I should protect my existence and try to affect others [. . .] in my limited space. (#18)

While this estrangement is expressed as a refusal to engage with institutional politics, some respondents link personal identity work to the social change they hope to achieve. The distancing from public political action is not because they do not believe change is needed, but because they feel completely powerless and hopeless in their ability to affect what is going on in the country (see also Salmenniemi, 2019: 416–417):

Gezi happened, and I was feeling insecure. I wanted to do something for people, but my options for it were [. . .] limited, it didn’t make sense to go out on streets, it didn’t make sense to join anything. [. . .] At the end I came to think that if you want a revolution, you need to create your own revolution. [. . .] You don’t need to go too far to make a change, you can create a small space of influence, you can find 3–5 people and do something for them. These triggered something for me [. . .] and I got into yoga. (#4)

Conclusion: Yoga between Neoliberal Governance and Lifestyle Politics

While modern postural yoga can converge with neoliberal entrepreneurial discourse, it also offers tools that can be used to contest neoliberal norms. This article has explored the narratives of a group of middle-class yoga practitioners in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to analyse these discourses, which articulate elements such as self-inquiry, truth, flow and slowness, linked to anti-competitiveness and anti-consumption.

Nevertheless, the emphasis that the existing literature places on yoga as neoliberal governance is not misplaced. In fact, as I have presented, my respondents’ narratives, full of ambivalences and tensions, traverse a range of discursive frameworks. These tensions, however, are not surprising, given that what defines the class position of my respondents is specifically its contradictory nature (Tuğal, 2015: 81). The participants in this research function as carriers of consumerism in Turkey, but also join in criticisms of the neoliberal market. Their narratives and practices reflect their ambivalent position, coupling a form of pre-figurative politics and anti-capitalism with class distinction.

Yet the findings of this research emphasise that the heterogeneity included in lifestyle practices and discourses should not be overlooked. The a priori dismissal of yoga and similar lifestyle practices – such as alternative healing and slow food, as well as communities formed around other recreational activities – as ‘trivial’ consumption or as governing tools forecloses their complexity, their potential for articulation with other movements, and in this case, their potential as reservoirs of middle-class discontent and contestation. The contexts of consumption and lifestyles, including how they are organised around spaces, need to be taken into account in analysing their meanings (Wahlen and Laamanen, 2015: 400).

In this case, these discourses and practices are brought forth by negative experiences within the neoliberal market (see also Scharff, 2016: 116) as well as by a highly repressive political environment, which has increasingly alienated respondents. These conditions have pushed and enabled individuals to articulate new subjectivities and experiment with new living and working practices, using their existing social and cultural capital as well as the tools that have become available through neoliberal globalisation. While their attention towards the self and the body might seem an elitist preoccupation, it has also entailed a re-evaluation of the social value of productive activities and the subjectivity that emerges from these activities (see also Hardt and Negri, 2000: 261–268).

Haenfler et al. (2012: 13) refer to lifestyle movements as ‘collective action reservoirs’ and argue that they ‘may serve as refuges in times of unfavourable political opportunity’. Mirroring this argument, I propose that the role these communities play as reservoirs of middle-class discontent and potential might be even more significant in autocratising contexts like Turkey, where parts of the middle class increasingly see avenues of public participation, as well as economic and social advancement, as closed off. Scholars and activists should take heed of this when considering political alliances and resources needed to respond to neoliberal offensives. That the neoliberal autocratisation in Turkey is articulated with a socially conservative and patriarchal worldview might explain why some of these new practices and spaces emerge as particularly relevant for women. In the Turkish case, the regime idealises and advocates the role of women within the household as mothers and wives, as reflected in myriads of its policies (Güneş-Ayata and Doğangün, 2017). It preaches a conservative lifestyle, claiming authority not only on Islam and spirituality, but also on women’s bodies. As such, yoga and related lifestyle movements might offer women a safe-space where they are able to claim control of their bodies, as well as their spirituality. This insight points to further avenues for inquiry that might explore the particular ways in which gender, embodiment and neoliberal policies interact in autocratising contexts such as Turkey.

Supplemental Material

sj-xlsx-1-soc-10.1177_0038038521998930 – Supplemental material for Flexible Selves in Flexible Times? Yoga and Neoliberal Subjectivities in Istanbul

Supplemental material, sj-xlsx-1-soc-10.1177_0038038521998930 for Flexible Selves in Flexible Times? Yoga and Neoliberal Subjectivities in Istanbul by T Deniz Erkmen in Sociology

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Sinem Adar, Dr Mert Arslanalp and participants at the Atatürk Institute of Modern Turkish History Seminar (16 December 2016) at Boğaziçi University, and at the European Sociological Association Consumption Conference (September 2016) for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article. Ayşegül Ataş assisted with the research, and transcribed interviews with Betül Kübra Arslan. I am grateful to both for their work. I am also thankful to all my respondents for volunteering their time and sharing their stories.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

T Deniz Erkmen

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

T Deniz Erkmen is Assistant Professor at the International Relations Department at Özyeğin University, Istanbul. She got her BA degree in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and her PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her teaching and research fields are comparative politics and political sociology, involving transnationalism, new middle classes and authoritarian consolidation. She has ongoing research on neoliberal subjectivities among new middle classes as well as protests repression in contemporary Turkey. She has published in Democratization, South European Society and Politics, Current Sociology and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism.

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