ABSTRACT
The conclusion basically summarizes the book, referring to the fieldwork, reminding the question how did a late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century local, lower-class dance of Argentina grow, and flourish in Turkey first during the Turkish Republican and later in the twenty-first century neo-conservative era under the practice of the country’s middle and upper middle classes, existing even during the Covid-19 pandemic with online tango dance classes, gatherings, conferences, and speeches. To answer the contradictory situation above, the chapter reminds us that this book focused on the social characteristics of the tango dancers, the meanings they attach to their dancing bodies as well as what this dance reflects about their self-identity – besides the policies of Justice and Development Party. This chapter sums the claim of the book: tango's continued popularity and expansion in Turkey is considerably due to the meanings that the middle and upper-middle class dancers have attached to their bodies under the neoliberal policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s JDP government – even though its policies did not directly intend to promote this dance form whatsoever.
This last chapter starts with the author asking where sexuality is in the contemporary Argentine tango dance which is said to be the sexual and passionate dance of male and female bodies since its contemporary version shows that this dance and its dancing bodies transformed into many things and acquired various meanings other than the expression of sexual desires. The author provides some possible answers. She also reveals how the story of the book also tenders her story of tango in a disguised way in which she asks if she “owns” her unique tango or if she is totally one of the products of tango culture industry and consumer-oriented market and to what extent.
