ABSTRACT
The Malaysian government has promoted interracial and inter-religious participation in festivals and open house visiting as a means to develop and enhance social solidarity amongst Malaysia’s diverse population. Although governmental goals are in accord with Durkheimian functionalist and British structural-functionalist interpretations of such events, many social scientists note that social solidarity is only one of many functions of rituals and festivals (Turner 1974; Comaroff 1985; Kertzer 1988). Festival participants and organizers may use festivals to foster social solidarity and/or to change, resist or subvert power structures and social orders. In this chapter I will explore some of the ways people used festivals and open house visiting to negotiate the position and relationships of groups in Melaka. These negotiations entail reproductions and contestations of mental representations of the social order and are an integral part of processes of cultural citizenship.
