The Argentine tango as a discursive instrument and agent of social empowerment: Buenos Aires, 1880-1955

As an indisputable central element of Argentine popular culture, the tango constitutes much more than an artistic expression or a recreational activity. It is the manifestation of a collective ideology and idiosyncrasy. The development of the tango as a song of the people and social history between the 1880\u27s and the first half of the 20th century, was not merely the result of a matter of identification but more importantly, the fact that it, in its \u27tridimensionality\u27 comprised of music, dance and lyrics, offered the milieu to the existence of the people that identified with it. In other words, the tango gave voice to the voiceless, allowing them to develop an identity of their own as a collectivity but also made possible the empowerment of specific groups and individuals. Taking this into consideration, this study explores how the Argentine tango functioned as a discursive instrument that provided the means for the development of different social identities in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and class