Ageing and New Intimacies: Gender, Sexuality and Temporality in an English Salsa Scene. By S.Milton, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024. 152 pp. £85.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978‐1‐52616806‐1

Drawing upon sensory ethnography and life history interviews with often newly single-middle class and middle-aged White women, Milton explores the experience of navigating romance, identity and ageing through the intimate, social world of partnered dance. Highlighting an interplay of proximity and distance, both in the physical aspects of salsa dance itself and in the emotional landscapes salsa opens up for women in their ‘second stage’, she explores themes of gender norms, heteronormativity, race and class. Organised into an introduction, four empirical chapters and a conclusion, the reader is introduced to a sociocultural world of baby boomer women, normative beliefs of the desexualisation of ageing women and the social invisibility of women at mid-life. The introduction provides a robust historical and theoretical context, and this scholarly tone carries throughout the work. This book will appeal to scholars interested in dance culture, ageing and gender theory. Whilst Milton offers a compassionate critique of the norms governing middle-aged heteronormative femininity, I anticipated a more politicised analysis of the ways salsa norms intersect with race and class. Nonetheless, Milton captures a nuanced narrative wherein women's new intimacies reflect how hegemonic norms both impose self-limiting beliefs and opportunities for empowerment. For example, stepping into a structured salsa class, wherein touch is de-sexualised offers a paradoxical ‘safe space’ where women can explore desire, romance and self-transformation while still being supported by a more traditional form of ‘respectable’ femininity. This type of ‘new’ intimacy, as Milton calls it, enacts both a form of traditional beliefs about women's roles and the possibility of ageing otherwise. This temporal interplay of novelty and nostalgia manifests through glamorous salsa outfits, less than ideal online dating experiences, and newfound female friendships both inside salsa classes and beyond. I approached this review as an autoethnographer, a scholar-practitioner and as a 30-something woman who, like the women Milton interviews, took up salsa dancing after a breakup. Although grounded in sensory ethnography, the vibrant world of salsa seems distant from the text. I found myself relying on my personal experiences in the salsa scene to connect the empirical and theoretical aspects of this work. Throughout, life history narratives are emphasised over sensory observations that could have captured the obvious roles of sweat, heat and music in salsa atmospheres. I was surprised that Milton did not draw more upon Pink's (2015) Sensory Ethnography to inform her approach to observation. With a more thorough investigation of touching, sights, sounds and smells, readers unfamiliar with salsa would be brought closer to understanding the sensorium that is so central to this inquiry. It is worth noting that Milton's fieldwork spanned 10 years, concluding just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Milton clearly states that this work is a snapshot in time and dedicates the epilogue to how COVID-19 changed the salsa scene. Online salsa classes, new norms around touch and social distance and open questioning of gendered dancing roles are now features of the salsa scene. By omitting these post-COVID phenomenon from the primary chapters of the text, Milton distances her work from contemporary social contexts meanwhile presenting a segue for future research on the salsa scene. Her point on the temporal situatedness of this ethnography could have been amplified with a discussion about how long-term ethnographic studies strive to maintain relevance in rapidly changing social contexts. In addition to this contextual distance, there was a noticeable distance of the author herself. With the exception of a few paragraphs which identified herself, I struggled to see and feel Milton in this text. In many instances, Milton acknowledges that her role may have shaped the interlocutors' stories, but it is never clearly stated how. I found myself wanting to know more about how her life history shaped the study, and the intimacies created with the women who shared their stories with her. In some ways, this distancing mirrors the structured roles within the salsa scene, where adherence to ‘proper’ conduct keeps both dancers and researchers in their safe zones. This causes me to speculate on the enduring norms in ethnographic writing that distance researchers from their research, which is especially salient considering the topic at hand is intimacy. Reflecting on my response to this text, I realise that my own proximity to the subject shapes my critique. It is this closeness that, on one hand, has identified distance in this text and, on the other, makes me appreciate Milton's graceful approach to intersectionality and optimistic outlook on femininity and ageing. As somebody who will hopefully become a middle-aged woman, I imagine that when that time comes, I will revisit this work, considering the dance between tradition and transition that constantly redefine ageing and new intimacy. The author has nothing to report.