Bodily habituation and symbolic communication of ta'dzim among serving students in an Indonesian pesantren

Abstract

This study examines how Ta’dzim, the veneration shown by santri toward teachers, is constructed and sustained as communication in the experience of santri mengabdi at a pesantren in Menes, Pandeglang, Indonesia. Existing scholarship largely explains Ta’dzim through kitab akhlak or authority of the kiai, producing a downward account. Employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis through Alfred Schutz’s Social Phenomenology and Symbolic Interactionism, this study analyses interviews conducted between March and July 2026 with eight serving santri. Supplemented by interviews with the pengasuh and her son, the study finds a different pattern. First, Ta’dzim is learned through the body before reasoning: participants performed acts of veneration before, and sometimes without, knowing their basis, citing the kitab as a justification discovered afterwards. Second, transmission runs horizontally; participants identified senior santri or peers as sources of knowledge, and none reported instruction from the pengasuh, who corroborated this pattern. Third, because opportunities for asking upward are limited, the pengasuh’s facial expressions become the santri’s main source of information, functioning as standards for self-evaluation and producing guilt without fault. Fourth, obedience does not erase judgment: participants report fatigue, irritation, and doubt, yet express them without disturbing the relationship. The study concludes that agreement rests on the form of the act rather than its reason. Theoretically, it extends Schutz’s notions of recipe knowledge and reciprocity of perspectives, showing how nonverbal cues in hierarchical relations become instruments of self-evaluation.