This paper explores the discursive evolution of yoga in Türkiye through an analysis of public representations and institutional framings from the early 20th century to the present. Drawing from my ongoing PhD research, it builds on an expanding archive of Turkish-language press materials (including advertisements, news articles, interviews, and commentary) spanning from the 1930s to the 2000s. These sources illustrate how yoga entered Turkish public consciousness through diverse mediations: as a spiritual science, ascetic technique, therapeutic exercise, fitness regime, or New Age philosophy, depending on the period and platform. These shifting framings reflect broader transformations in how yoga was adapted, authenticated, and localized across changing sociopolitical and cultural contexts.

While these press materials reveal evolving perceptions of yoga, they do not fully capture how it is currently taught, practiced, and regulated in 21st-century Türkiye. This presentation offers preliminary findings from this historical discourse analysis as the first phase of a broader study. The next phase includes ethnographic interviews with contemporary yoga instructors and, where possible, officials from the Sports for All Federation (Herkes İçin Spor Federasyonu), the governmental body responsible for regulating yoga instruction in Türkiye.

The larger scope of my dissertation investigates discursive tensions among practitioners, instructors, and institutional authorities, as well as academic representations of yoga. These tensions raise fundamental questions about who defines yoga, how it gains legitimacy, and through what sources of authority (e.g., textual, embodied, institutional, or transnational) it is adapted into the Turkish context.