ABSTRACT
Building on the introductory notes on conventions, (see Introduction to Part II), this chapter addresses the ongoing negotiations between salsa dancers about salsa’s “Latinness”. Dancers with different countries of origin develop various strategies and claim different positions to legitimate their authority as salsa dancers. In this process, they mobilise arguments of “authenticity” and ethnicity, which also intersect with gender. This chapter considers the negotiations of authenticity in several sites: at European salsa festivals and in salsa tourism spaces in Havana, Cuba. It explores the boundary-making processes and position strategies individual dancers develop in order to create and maintain their reputation as artists in the salsa circuit. To do this, the chapter first examines the boundary-making strategies of non-Latin salsa dance professionals and then focuses on the positioning strategies of Latin American salsa dance professionals. It analyses the performed ethnicised practices as part of symbolic conflicts and strategies of entrepreneurship in the competitive field of the salsa circuit. The last part of this chapter addresses the negotiations of authenticity in the space of salsa tourism in Havana.
