This concept is, of course, borrowed in some measure from Marx's understanding of capitalism in its more traditional sense. Capital is something that a person can exchange to receive something desired. Social capital is not, however, perfectly analogous to other forms of capital because social capital is not used up in any given exchange. Social capital, which can also be looked at as analogous to social standing, comprises education, class, demographic aspects such as age, gender, and race, beauty, expertise, and talent, among other attributes, attracts people to each other and can be used to acquire many types of goods.
The second coding category that I use in this project is that of collective identity. This coding concept is to some extent analogous to culture: It is the sum of the ways in which members of a group feel connected to each other as related to their membership...
This code is an obvious one given that the dynamics that are being explored here are (at least in part) the ways in which Chinese and Americans (and Chinese and American culture) interact with each other. China is still considered to be an essentially collective culture while America is still considered to be an essentially individualist culture. These are certainly simplifications, but they have sufficient validity to be useful.
The final concept that I have used in coding this event is that of performativity. I base this concept on the work of Erving Goffman's model that we are all (pace Shakespeare) actors on a stage. However, to what extent we are performing a role does vary, as does the distance between what we might consider to be our basic, unembroidered role, and the one that we are performing (or even inhabiting) at any given point in time.
