G. Carter Bentley’s practice theory is a popular approach in understanding how ethnicity is constructed and ethnic identity is maintained. Here we shift from boundaries to focus on people’s patterns of experiences, both objective and subjective. Bentley draws on Bordieu’s concepts of "habitus" and "practice". Bordieu argues that the objective conditions, mediated by systems of symbolic representations, generate in different persons dispositions to act in different ways (Bentley 1987: 28) Habitus compromises "…a set of generative schemes that produce practices and representations that are regular without reference to overt rules and that are goal directed without requiring conscious selection of goals or mastery of methods achieving them." (as quoted in Bentley, Ibid.,). Hence habits become a mechanic way of being, acting and thinking, developed through 1) social practices, 2) shared experiences, 3) experimentation and 4) comprehension of those relationships......
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