ABSTRACT
History and past experiences shape models and schemata of “Malaysia’s diverse society” and “Malay privilege.” National leaders and local people have widely disseminated and institutionalized these representations, as we have seen, in Melaka and across Malaysian society. Similar to “habitus” they habituate and incline people and groups to behave in particular ways (see Bourdieu 1977, 1990). However, these representations are embodied in practice rather than embodied practice. Surely, the public celebrations and museum exhibitions discussed in this chapter are not only embodied practices, but they are practices embodied with numerous notions, images, and beliefs. If we were to collapse knowledge and behavior into a single descriptive and analytic concept such as “habitus,” we would be at a loss to account for the tension between these representations and the negotiation of such cultural knowledge that goes into producing social events.
