ABSTRACT
Chapter I starts with a claim that the nature of identity has changed historically from being pregiven and predefined by social roles, family, and traditional belief systems to being open to change, self-reflexive, personal, presented and reconstructed in Western(ized) consumer, information, or media society(s). The chapter introduces some of the ideas of Erving Goffman on self-presentation, Anthony Giddens’ definition of modern self, Giddens’ and Bauman’s dichotomies of modern self, based on emancipation from group restrictions versus socializing and integrating into a community to attain self-growth as well as the dichotomy based on self-assertion versus finding security in a social group. This chapter explains that the modern individual experiences these dichotomies in the social context of tango social dancing, instrumentalizing her / his body as the site of this self-growth, self-reflection and self-actualization. This chapter carries on introducing the contemporary Western concept of leisure as a means of providing neoliberal spaces for secular upper-middle classes to actualize, reflect and realize themselves, tango dancing being one of them.
