ABSTRACT
This chapter uses a theoretical framework drawing on Bourdieu’s capital theory and social network theory to analyse the process of reputation building, the third status passage in the construction of salsa dance professionals’ transnational careers. Dance professionals draw on various resources to enhance their reputations in the salsa circuit and construct what I have termed salsa capital. The first section of this chapter suggests an analysis of salsa dancers’ social capital through the perspective of (qualitative) social network literature. It asks how dancers access social capital embedded in their networks and shows how networking strategies inform the process of reputation building. The second part of this chapter discusses the resources mobilised in the construction of “salsa capital”. Salsa capital is constructed differently, depending on dancers’ position in and outside of the salsa circuit and their endowment with other forms of capital. This chapter demonstrates the significance of mobility, bodies, gender and ethnicity in this process. The chapter’s conclusion addresses the question of the convertibility of different forms of capital.
