Essay Database

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 …

…movement, but also "…provided a charter for black ethnicity, for a new and potentially enduring sense of shared identity, experience, and purpose" (Bentley 1987: 45). Thus, in order to properly account for ethnic group formation and mobilization, one must 1) identify dimensions of common experience and habitus that underlie the ability of ethnic leaders to mobilize their followers, and 2) analyze how ethnic appeals implicate conceptions of personal and group identity in order to account for their effectiveness (Bentley 1987: 47).