The 'Spirit of Education' in Indonesian "Pesantren"

Author(s): Pam Nilan

Source: British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Mar., 2009), pp. 219-232
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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British Journal of Sociology of Education V\ Doutledae
Vol. 30, NO. 2, March 2009, 219-232 |^ Taylor Doutledae & Fran Jcroup

The 'spirit of education9 in Indonesian Pesantren

Pam Nilan*

School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

{Received 12 March 2008; final version received 1 July 2008)

This paper employs Foucauldian theory to consider Islamic boarding school

experiences in Indonesia. For some pupils 'the spirit of education' - a dimension
of pleasure - comes to be highly valued, creating a lifelong passion for the pursuit
of knowledge. Two school principals (both pesantren [Islamic boarding school]
graduates themselves) articulated strong commitment to the 'spirit of education'.
Yet their respective boarding schools were very poor, not only by western
standards but compared with Indonesian public schools, and conditions were
austere. The embodiment of pesantren discourse as high academic achievement is
illustrated by the example of Khadija - a young female pesantren graduate now
studying at doctoral level in the United Kingdom. Explaining the embodied
production of the 'spirit of education' demands looking at charismatic pedagogy,
strict rules, austere conditions and sparse provision of learning resources as
regimes of truth and power-knowledge relations that inhere in pesantren as lived
experiences of pupils.

Keywords: Islamic boarding school; spirit of education; Foucault

Introduction

God will elevate to high ranks those that have faith and knowledge among you. (The
Koran 2000, verse 58.1 1, 542)

It is common in the West to focus on negative outcomes of pesantren (Islamic boarding

school) education (for example, Gentzkow and Shapiro 2003, 1). Indeed significant
Australian aid funding is directed to improving resources and curricula in Indonesian
Muslim schools (for example, Downer 2007), with the implicit aim of combating the
growth of regional Islamist terrorism. This paper addresses a quite different outcome,
however. For some Indonesian pesantren graduates, 'the spirit of education' is
produced as a pleasurable lifelong 'thirst' for knowledge and study - surely one of the
most desirable outcomes of schooling.
A pesantren in contemporary Indonesia usually consists of apondok (dormitory-
style boarding facility) and a madrasah (day school). As boarding institutions,pesantren
are profoundly shaping environments for children and youth. While madrasah day
pupils spend two-thirds of each day in the socializing environment of family and commu-
nity, pesantren boarders spend 24 hours a day of their formative years (Srimulyani 2007,
86) in the company of fellow pupils, teachers and mentors, dwelling in what Goffman

♦Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0142-5692 print/ISSN 1465-3346 online

© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01425690802700321
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220 P. Nilan

(1961) calls a 'total institution' where various 'mortifications of the

Beyond the daily hours spent in formal learning, pesantren pupils are i
hours of prayer, recitation of the Koran, and religious instruction. The
go to bed late. There is little or no privacy in the pondok, and not much
duties. Indonesian pesantren are typically poor and pupils live in aus
under strict rules.
In Asylums, Goffman (1961) argues that 'mortifications of the self in
tutions' have the effect of reconstructing the person to an extent that
in more open, diverse or comfortable social contexts. Goffman's e
asylums, prisons and, significantly, boarding schools. However, Gof
does not adequately address the micro-operations of power in 'morti
self that constitute the production of an institutionally inflected subjec
Foucault's theorizing of power relations is applied to understanding how
sian pesantren as an institution can produce a pious, modern Muslim
passion for knowledge.

Methodology
The data used in this paper come from long-term research1 on contemp
Indonesia - focusing on education, youth transitions, gender and popular
example, Nilan 2008). In 2004 I conducted fieldwork in Makassar in
that involved contact with teachers and visits to schools. I spoke w
school principals - one male, one female. Both implied the 'spirit of
had personally developed through their own pesantren schooling, a
hoped to pass on to their pupils. I also located some informants who wer
pesantren graduates. This paper emerged from the challenge of emp
dian paradigms to explore how the 'spirit of education' develops as
outcome of the Muslim boarding school experience in Indonesia.
Accordingly, the narrative of one female pesantren graduate is used t
the embodiment of the 'spirit of education' discourse. Khadija's stor
from fieldwork notes on five young adult pesantren graduates I met
2004, and with whom I remained in contact. Interestingly, some of t
showed resistance to pesantren discourses. However, given the complexit
Foucauldian paradigms, the purposive selection of a single, detailed n
rather than a range of very different graduate stories, permitted the n
focus on theoretical interpretation. The story of Khadija comes from fi
in 2004, subsequently updated through visits and emails in 2005, 200
inclusion of Khadija's profile fits with methodological arguments f
single case (study) in social science endeavours where the primary purpo
ical development (Flyvbjerg 2006, 221), or to serve as an exemplar in
an already well-formulated theory (Yin 2003). The reader is reminded th
pretive discussion below is an exploration and application of Foucauldian
'spirit of education' phenomenon, rather than an account driven by emp

Pesantren in Indonesia

With a population estimated at 237,512,355, Indonesia is the fourth most populous

nation in the world. As a secular constitutional democracy ranked 107 of 177 countries
by the Human Development Index (UNDP 2008, 239), Indonesia is a 'normal

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education 22 1

middle-income country' in the 'global bracket' shared by Russia, the Philippines and
Turkey (Anderson 2007, 6). Eighty-eight per cent of Indonesians follow Islam,
making it the world's most populous Muslim nation (CIA 2008). Religion is signifi-
cant in every aspect of life, including education. Religious values are taken as impor-
tant educational standards and objectives, ideally manifesting as correct moral values
shown by students (Raihani 2007, 173). Yet at the same time 'education has been a
central component of modernization' in Indonesia (Lukens-Bull 2000, 26). Most
contemporary Indonesian pesantren demonstrate a synthesis in curricula and peda-
gogy between these two meta-discourses of schooling: the maintenance of normalized
traditional Muslim moral values; and the production of skilled modern citizens for the
ummah and for the rapidly modernizing state.
Indonesian pesantren have been a traditional form of Muslim educational institu-
tion since the sixteenth century (Srimulyani 2007, 85). Traditionally they were:

Teaching complexes consisting of (1) the domicile of a Muslim scholar (ulama, kyai)
having at least some knowledge of theology, classical interpretations of the law (...) (2)
a mosque; and (3) some residential facilities for those wishing to join the kyai in collec-
tive prayer and to enjoy his tutelage. (Howell 2001, 704)

Currently the term pesantren describes a complex that both educates and accommo-
dates children and young people (Geertz 1960) - 'generally divided into two types:
salafi (traditional) and khalafi (modern)' (Raihani 2001, 64). Modern pesantren still
maintain the classic instruction of the santri in prayer, recitation and theological
discourse - after madrasah school hours (Zuhdi 2006, 421; see also Pohl 2006, 403).
Since 1976 the madrasah curriculum has comprised 30% religious instruction and
70% secular study (Zuhairini et al. 1986, 84-86). As a general rule, 'each pesantren
manages its own madrasah' (Jabali and Jamhari 2003, 59). The kyai (spiritual leader)
and principal (or senior teaching staff) recruit and pay teachers, create and develop
pedagogical practices, and obtain and maintain curriculum resources. There are great
differences of wealth and curriculum between rural and urban Muslim schools. While
some are networked into the state and/or national Muslim organizations, many rural
schools operate independently on very small donated funds. Madrasah accommodate
about six million school-age children. More than 50% are female (Ministry of Educa-
tion 2002).
During the New Order period until 1998, the constituency of Islamic schools
broadened from the children of conservative Muslim families (often rural and poor),
to the children of middle-class and religiously moderate families, who believed their
children needed strong values to protect them from the negative aspects of the modern
secular (westernized) world. 'The changing constituency has forced many Muslim
schools to change their educational goals, from producing clerics to producing
students with a broad understanding of various scientific disciplines and a strong
commitment to religious life' (Zuhdi 2006, 424; see also Jabali and Jamhari 2003, 80).
The fall of Suharto initiated a further flurry of reforms after 1998. For example, state-
recognized pesantren graduates now receive state certificates upon graduation (Zuhdi
2006, 425).
Yet the majority of Islamic-schooled graduates still 'lack the skills needed to partic-
ipate in a competitive job market' (Guerin 2006, 4). Entry to prestigious state-run
Indonesian universities (secular and Muslim) is highly competitive, forcing many
pesantren graduates into substandard private Muslim universities (IAIN Sunan Kali-
jaga 2005), from which graduate employment prospects are bleak. Suparto (2004, 22)

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222 P. Nilan

reports that now, 'controversially, even some pesantren leaders send the
state schools'. However, in devout families & pesantren education is ofte
especially for girls, and that trend has intensified in the current culture o
gence' (Smith-Hefner 2005, 441). Discomfort and stringency in the b
experience are viewed not as drawbacks, but as components of the txdiA\t\
experience that produces good Muslims. For example, at the prestig
Makassar boys' pesantren described below, middle-class boarders wer
starkpondok living conditions quite at odds with the relative luxury of th
Any complaints apparently fell on deaf ears, since parents believed t
lucky (blessed) to be there.

Muhammadiyah education
Although many pesantren in Indonesia are part of the traditional N
network, both the schools described here belong to the modernist M
network dedicated to 'religious renewal through education and
(Rabasa 2005; see also Jackson and Bahrissalim 2007, 44). Despite cl
12% of Indonesian Muslims as adherents, Muhammadiyah remains
'modernist' Islamic movement in the country and has influenced even 't
alists to adopt new methods of teaching and new subjects of study with
pesantren schooling system' (Fox 2004, 5-9; see also Pohl 2006, 397

Progressive pesantren principals

Both of the principals I met from progressive Muhammadiyah pesantren
had studied overseas. Pak Slamet, aged 40 years, had a Masters degr
Arabia and an English-language diploma from the USA. Ibu Nur, aged 28
Masters degree from Egypt and an English-language qualification from
spoke with passion and enthusiasm about their schools, alluding to educati
of both worlds' - religious and secular. Pak Slamet was principal at a boy
in Makassar. The kyai (spiritual leader of 'a pesantren) was an IAIN Jakar
Muslim university) graduate. Ibu Nur was principal of a girls' pesantren
kyai had attended A I Azhar University in Egypt - renowned for taking
approach to education in the Islamic sciences' (Jackson and Bahrissalim 2
kyai had enthusiastically endorsed the appointment of their respective (
cipals. Pak Slamet and Ibu Nur wanted their pupils to experience that sam
further knowledge they had felt when they were children in the pondok
been educated in the same boys' pesantren where he was now principal. H

When I was small, when I was a boarder here, I felt the spirit of educatio
my heart and never leaves me. (Pak Slamet, field notes on conversation
Makassar, 14 July 2004)

Young Ibu Nur was temporarily living apart from her husband of f
studying for his doctorate) to become a principal in Poso. She stressed th
of comprehensive education for Muslim girls, who would then be a
'partnership' in marriage:

Our girls, you know, now I am principal - they say - 1 can do that - some o
best ones [...] because you know we are modern women in Islam now. Edu

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education 223

prepare us. (Ibu Nur, field notes of conversation conducted in English, Yogyakarta, 4
July 2004)

Education and knowledge are key transformative discourses of modern Indonesian

Islam. Srimulyani found that 'a strong motivation to pursue higher education is not
uncommon among the female students of a pesantren [...] talking about their future
plans after pesantren education, almost all of the girls showed great interest in continuing
their studies' (2007, 93). This is not surprising. Within the truth regime of Islam, knowl-
edge is equated with faith, and faith constitutes the power and authority of the ummah:

In the Islamic traditions, knowledge is positioned as equal with faith. Various verses of
al Qur'an, and pieces of Hadits, are concerned with the importance of knowledge and the
strength of those having knowledge, urging Muslims to seek knowledge and to be
knowledgeable people. (Raihani 2001, 36)

The 'strength of those having knowledge' allows them to act in powerful ways in the
world. Raihani 's study concludes that teaching an integrated school curriculum to
Muslim pupils is to 'empower them to become the viceregents of God {khalifatullah
fi al- 'ardh) who have a balanced and integrated personality submitting his/her life to
God on the level of the individual, community and humanity at large' (Raihani 2001,
41 ; emphasis added). The term viceregent of God describes a particular kind of human
subject - highly skilled, socially influential - through whom the will of God works
here on earth. So while the traditional Indonesian pesantren aimed to 'produce
Muslims with strong Islamic morals, or akhlak, and possess Islamic knowledge'
(Raihani 2001, 37), the modern pesantren links this aim discursively to the rewards of
acquiring secular knowledge. It is through these twinned capacities that the subjectiv-
ity of contemporary khalifatullah fi al- 'ardh is realized.

Khadija
Accounts from young adult pesantren graduates encountered during my fieldwork
indicated that, for most, their schooling was far from a humiliating, harsh experience,
despite strict rules and uncomfortable conditions. Rather, they conveyed a tangible
sense of pleasure and richness when talking about their boarding school experiences,
which often began at a young age.
Khadija was born into a pious but poor Buginese3 family. Her father and mother
were farmers and she had two younger siblings. She entered the local girls' pesantren
at the age of five years, donning as school uniform the headscarf and body-covering
garments she will wear in public for the rest of her life, she told me in 2004. She said
she could never dress otherwise because it was part of her 'natural self as a Muslim
woman (see Smith-Hefner 2006, 390; Warbuton 2006, 1). Khadija loved doing her
schoolwork and adored her teachers. She told me happy tales of her life in the pondok
completing homework with her friends. As the girls approached puberty, there were
frequent warnings about zina (sexual practices, even sexual thoughts and feelings, that
occur outside marriage are considered sinful). The advice from teachers was to avoid
all wordly distractions, to think only of God, to pray and fast often, and to read and
recite the Koran frequently - with greater concentration on all these practices if
troubling thoughts occurred. Khadija found fasting was an excellent way to develop
self-control while studying. Later as a postgraduate student she still fasted two or three
times a week between sunrise and sunset.

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224 P. Nilan

Khadijah graduated from the pesantren with excellent results at

years, and enrolled in a state Islamic university in Makassar. With inter
Buginese literature and English language, she drew the attention of her
eventually the Rektor (Head) of the university. The Rektor told me he i
ising undergraduates like Khadija to regular group meetings at his h
evenings because he wanted them to obtain overseas postgraduate
Friday meetings comprised prayers, scholarly discourse on Islamic 'scien
scholars, and short student presentations, followed by discussion of
issues in English and Arabic. The Rektor spoke of the Islamic 'quest'
citing the popular hadith that Muslims should 'seek knowledge as far
years after graduating cum laude from her Bachelor's degree, Kha
Australian Masters scholarship. On return she lectured at the same u
four years later, she gained a PhD scholarship for the United Kin
always says she is not in a hurry to marry because she is devoted to sch
At the time of writing, she is still studying in Britain and still unmarr
of age. Her career goal is to write - in English - the first definiti
Buginese literature by a Buginese scholar. Her life goal is to make the h
to Mecca). Yet Khadija is far from a rigid ascetic. She enjoys socializing w
of people, and likes watching British crime shows on television.
I understand Khadija's journey through life so far to embody the 'spi
tion' implied by the two school principals above. The rest of this paper
exploration, using Foucauldian precepts, of the common kinds of m
stances and power-knowledge relations in pesantren that form cond
embodied production of a subjectivity such as hers.

Physical conditions in the pesantren

Khadija's accounts of her life as a pesantren boarder in Poso emphas
even when she was talking about strict rules. But her remembered sense
came primarily from learning, and from relationships with teachers an
never mentioned the physical environment except to say that her pesan
poor. We can get a sense of the likely physical conditions of her pesantr
excerpt below taken from my notes after a visit to Pak Slamet's sch
Previously I had only visited Indonesian state schools.

Is this a modern pesantren favoured by wealthy Bugis families for the educa
sons? I am reminded of a Charles Dickens novel - Dotheboys Hall perhap
living quarters are two story cement block buildings. There is no glass in t
Everything seems either broken or rusted. In the senior boys' dormitory
enclosed in a wire cage so they can have a locker and some personal space
boys' dormitory is a cavernous echoing space of ancient sagging double
jammed together. Everywhere is the smell of dysfunctional toilets and
garbage. Although there is paving up near the classrooms, the dormitor
surrounded by bare earth covered in rubble and rubbish. It seems the boys h
their washing as it is hung off every available thing - perhaps there are no w
It is explained to me [by Pak Slamet] that this privation is part of the humblin
endure in accepting and learning the religion. (Field notes, Makassar, 2 Au

This was not regarded as a 'poor' pesantren. It held considerable acad

the city, and boys were registered for enrolment at birth. The school w
endowed by previous pupils who had created prosperous careers fo

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education 225

However, money was spent on curriculum and teaching improvements rather than on
capital works. As Pak Slamet explained, privation and discomfort were regarded as
essential aspects of the learning environment.
I could not take up the invitation from Ibu Nur to visit her pesantren because of
civil unrest in Poso, but I presume that conditions there were equally, or even more
uncomfortable, and therefore similar to those experienced by Khadija in the 1980s.
When I phoned Ibu Nur she said that her pesantren was poor but her pupils were
happy. They were encouraged to live simply, be self-reliant, pray often, and read the
Koran whenever opportunity arose. The girls were not allowed to have any coloured
objects or clothing, and music was forbidden. Ibu Nur explained that these rules devel-
oped pious habits in the girls, and focused their attention on God and learning. This
concurs with other accounts of pesantren, for example:

Ikhlas [selflessness] and kesederhanaan [modest living] are taught by Spartan and
communal living arrangements [...]. In most pesantren, the santri sleep on the floor in a
room that may hold up to eighty other students. A room that one might judge to be
adequate for one, perhaps two students, houses six to eight; the more popular the pesant-
ren, the more crowded the space. The meals are meager: rice and vegetables [...] santri
[...] doing their own washing, ironing, and housekeeping. (Lukens-Bull 2000, 40)

So what is the productive relationship between harsh living conditions and strict
rules of conduct and the pious lifelong pursuit of knowledge by pesantren graduates
such as Khadija? An explanation can be sought using Foucault's theorizing of power-
knowledge relations in institutions. My analysis here builds upon the many sociolog-
ical studies of western education that have used Foucault's paradigms (for example,
the edited collection by Ball 1990; also Dwyer 1995; Popkewitz and Brennan 1998;
Gore 2002). I also acknowledge the Foucauldian analysis by Parker (2006) of adoles-
cent sexuality in Indonesia.

Using Foucault to understand the phenomenon

What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn't
only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it
induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. (Foucault 1980, 119)

For Foucault, power is not synonymous with repression, with closing down possibili-
ties for creative action. Neither is power reducible to 'top-down' class, race, gender,
economic or material relations: it operates in, and circulates in, all social relations. In
place of structuralist analyses of governing power, Foucault explains the means of
exercising power through discourses, where the effects can be either negative or posi-
tive, shaping the subjectivity of individuals towards the ideal citizens of the state and/
or institutions. Discourse is conceptualized as the nexus of power-knowledge
(Foucault 1977, 27). Any operation of power is inextricably linked to specific knowl-
edge sets articulated and made tangible in discourse. The most significant discourses
constitute 'regimes of truth', structurally supported frameworks through which indi-
viduals come to understand themselves and organize defining practices. So for exam-
ple, through the regime of truth that informs contemporary Islam, Khadija understands
herself as a Muslim woman relevant to specific practices of the self. Yet there are
tensions and contradictions. Positioning herself explicitly within the legitimate
discourse of 'knowledge as faith' - the spirit of education - Khadija appears to be

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226 P. Mian

implicitly refuting another, very strong, Indonesian Muslim di

mandates marriage for a woman as the principle source of legitimacy
In pesantren, discrete institutional discourses constitute a 'regim
ideally produces a specific kind of citizen or member - operating thro
norms (Foucault 1977, 184). Evaluative norms supported by religiou
practices shape, over time, the ways pupils themselves assign mea
their conduct, their responsibilities, their pleasures and aspirations. S
archical observation and normalizing judgement are core proces
permitting increasing differentiation between individuals on an
moral-ethical axis.
On the moral-ethical axis, for example, Khadija's tale of teachers advising girls
against zina - a normalizing practice - implies that some girls will not to be able to
control themselves sexually (Bennett 2005). I have certainly heard anecdotes of girls
being expelled from pesantren for sexual activities, or for reading racy novels.
Practices of warning and shaming act to produce as virtuous the behaviour of pupils
like Khadija. Foucault noted that institutional power relations often focus on sexuality.
Forbidding colours and music to the girls in a pesantren speaks to controlling the
temptations of sensory delight as a precursor to controlling the temptations of zina.
Individual girls come to take as their own the institutionally reinforced discourses of
bodily control and piety. Khadija's practice of frequent fasting is an obvious example
of a 'technology' of the self that forces her attention towards study.
Over a decade after graduation, Khadija still constitutes her subjectivity within the
prevailing regime of truth in the pesantren - shaping and modifying her actions,
behaviour and comportment - employing 'technologies of the self (Foucault 2005) to
create herself as a good Muslim woman and industrious scholar. Khadija's personal
religious faith is not under scrutiny here. My interest lies in the apparent fact that,
since she has not married but has remained in educational institutions, her daily prac-
tices of the self have stayed more or less as they were. She still wears the traditional
pesantren style of headscarf. While daily Muslim prayer times are universally fixed,
Khadija said it was just easier for her if she followed fixed habits of time for other
devotional practices as well. These included attending religious lectures at the
mosque, carrying the Koran everywhere and reading it at set times, and regular fasting
and extra fasting to deal with stress and uncomfortable thoughts. These latter practices
developed as personal practices of piety in the pesantren and are still oriented to the
same objective of academic study - exemplifying embodiment of the 'spirit of educa-
tion'. Pesantren governmentality operates through moral discourses about sensuality
and sexuality to enact micro-relations of power that bear reflexively upon the self who
chooses the academic path.

The pleasures of learning

The shaping micro-physics of power within 'total' institutions such as pesantren are
usually not experienced by pupils as dominating and coercive, despite the strict, often
rigid rules and conditions. As indicated above, power often does not weigh heavily as
a force that says 'no', but as one that 'induces pleasure' (Foucault 1990, 81). Inpesant-
ren, the dearth of material comforts and freedoms, the lack of privacy, and the banning
of worldly pleasures may well have the combined effect of making the pedagogical
relationship and the knowledge offered by teachers seem the primary pleasures/
symbolic riches to be gained. Physical and sensory deprivation as operations of power

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education 227

in pesantren schooling appear to be linked to the production of knowledge as pleasure.

Pesantren pedagogy deploys specific targeted mechanisms of disciplinary power -
physical regulation, stringency and moral surveillance - not to produce personal
unhappiness of pupils, but to produce knowledge as pleasure - within a regime of truth
that equates knowledge with faith, and faith with the authority of the ummah (Raihani
2001,36).

Disciplinary power and the 'spirit of education9

Foucault identified disciplinary power - in three forms - as relational operations and
mechanisms that inhere in particular everyday practices of domination and usually go
unremarked throughout the social constituency (Foucault 1977).

Juridical power in the pesantren

Juridical power operates through centralized laws, policies, regulatory mechanisms
and organizational bureaucracies. In Muhammadiyah-lmked pesantren, the discourses
of juridical power are modernity and rationality. Funding up-to-date computer teach-
ing and learning, and paying for the best English teachers and syllabus materials, pre-
occupied both principals. Muhammadiyah juridical power ideally produces modern
Muslim subjects with the right kind of cultural capital to act effectively in secular
urban Indonesian society and beyond. Khadija had striven to learn English because
she knew it was important for her ultimate career goal. Even though the English-
language instruction at her pesantren was kurang (minimal or not very good), she
borrowed English books from the kyai and translated them in her spare time.

Pastoral power in the pesantren

For Foucault, pastoral power relies on the ancient Christian model of shepherd-flock
relations - salvation-oriented regulation of citizens for their own good. Pastoral power
in institutions creates individuals who are willing - perhaps even eager - to be visible,
open to scrutiny, and take correction. Inpesantren, operations of pastoral power ideally
produce the morally self-regulating pupil committed to the proselytizing collective
project of faith. Pastoral power 'cannot be exercised without knowing the inside of
people's minds, without exploring their souls, without making them reveal their inner-
most secrets. It implies a knowledge of conscience and an ability to direct it' (Foucault
1983, 214). This requires teachers who can operate sophisticated techniques of surveil-
lance and inspire pupils by example and by rhetoric at the same time. To use Foucault' s
analogy, the shepherd has to be able to convince the flock to follow him/her. With the
trusted teacher/mentor, pupils are willing to be open to scrutiny, to take correction, to
be inspired to shape themselves into the ideal graduate. It is no surprise, then, that Khadija
spoke so often about the teachers she idolized, nor that Pak Slamet and Ibu Nur took
pride in inspiring their pupils and were keen to raise the quality of their teachers.

Bio-power and embodied regulatory practice

For Foucault, bio-power alludes to the disciplining of 'docile bodies' through routin-
ized bodily practices - normalized, for example, through institutions (Dreyfus and
Rabinow 1983, 140). A significant operation of bio-power defines some behaviours

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228 P. Nilan

and practices as not-normal, unnatural, deviant, immoral, or even p

subsequent operation of bio-power uses these definitions to support syst
mation that control and sanction such behaviours and practices. Ope
power work in tandem with pastoral power techniques to specifical
discipline the bodies of members of institutions - so their sexuality and
are constituted in certain ways that bring about a formal outcome
139). Individuals learn and apply 'technologies of the self that work
promise of revealing the truth about the self- where the 'deepest' truth
in the discourse and discursive practices of sexuality (Foucault 1990,
Sex is celebrated in Muslim theology as a natural source of pleasure, b
controlled by taking place only within the formal bond of marriage
place at all in the pesantren. As we saw in the case of Khadija and
puberty, pupils are actively discouraged from even thinking abou
repeated warnings, surveillance, a programme of older pupils regulating
of younger pupils, absence of privacy, paucity of leisure time, and disco
usual leisure practices such as reading novels (Srimulyani 2007, 92), w
sion or listening to music. In the circumstances, the only 'riches' on off
and the knowledge bestowed by devoted teachers, although there is no g
pupils will obediently take up what is offered.
Shaping discourses of the self in pesantren are responsibility to the um
sion to law, and celebration of non-material values. These discourses
within lectures, prayer meetings, and interpretations of the Koran and
kyai and ustadz (religious teachers). The discourses are also manifeste
the overcrowded, uncomfortable conditions of the pondok and the c
ments meted out for indiscretions. One could argue that it is here in this
knowledge nexus of the institutional experience that the pesantren 'spir
is produced as a trope of pleasure. For example, Khadija's career goa
English the first definitive account of Buginese literature by a Buginese
non-material, highly altruistic objective on behalf of her own ethnic con

Dividing practices
Pesantren draw on bio-power to connect regimes of truth at the m
national and global Islamic discourses with technologies of the self at th
relying on the disciplinary power of the 'norm' to operate through the
plary moral conduct of some pupils over others. For example, Khadija m
disappointment that her school friends had married early and seeme
religious observance. Khadija has not ruled out marriage for herself, but
an Indonesian woman, she does not define it as a primary life goal.
The psychic power of the norm in pesantren transforms individuals i
subjects through 'dividing practices' that objectify the worth of ever
categories of 'forbidden' and 'permitted' behaviours. At Ibu Nur's p
senior girl who can recite the Koran most beautifully from memory
competition is regarded as having reaching a pinnacle of knowledge a
moral piety at the same time. Her status reward will be a special closene
and kyai. This may well have been the experience of Khadija during h
pesantren - strengthening her desire to position herself within the 'spir
In a final example, at Pak SlameVs pesantren, the two boys who ac
academic results at the end of the junior high school year are rewarded

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education 229

a sponsored month-long trip to the USA to improve their English. Through tangible
systems of 'knowledge' competition and reward, the 'spirit of education' is encour-
aged in pesantren pupils, as it is in most schools. However, the process is intensified
and magnified by the austerity of conditions and rules for boarders.

Pesantren as sites for the production of modernity

In their discussions with me, both Khadija and Ibu Nur used the word 'modern' about
themselves and the way they understood contemporary Islam in their life orientation
and practices as women. Although the word is linked to the widespread discourse of
modernity in the Indonesian state, the 'modern' also describes a subject position from
which they as Muslim women and individuals can act in authoritative ways. The idea
of Islamic modernity as emancipatory is linked to a particular framing of knowledge
that returns us to the production of pesantren graduates as 'the viceregents of God
(khalifatullah fi al-'ardhy (Raihani 2001, 41), highly skilled, socially influential
santri. This has everything to do with the emphasis on attaining knowledge - achieved
in part by material hardship and self-disciplinary practices that attempt to focus the
minds of pupils on the pleasurable richness of learning. The conventions of rote learn-
ing and frequent examination in secular subjects, and recitation from memory in
Koranic learning - operate to position pupils as acolytes. They can achieve entry to
the hallowed circle of the modern santri by mastery of the fixed knowledge sets in
both these discursive fields.
In his analysis of disciplinary power, Foucault emphasizes the political nature of
technologies embedded in religious practices. Yet he was at pains to distinguish
between the way these processes of subjectivity formation operated in pre-modern and
early modern times, and in late modernity. While the material conditions of Pak
Slamet's pesantren seemed Dickensian to me in material terms, it was very much a
twenty-first-century educational institution. The school operated very effectively
through mechanisms of bio-power and pastoral power to shape pupils as modern
ethical subjects who could operate equally successfully in the domains of secular
enterprise and faith.
Pohl's study of Indonesian Islamic schools found that few are inherently 'inimical
to such "modern" concerns as women's empowerment and good interfaith relations'
(2006, 390; see also Robinson 2004, 185). Lukens-Bull maintains that 'pesantren
people are redefining modernity' (2000, 34) in Indonesia. The aim is to 'produce' the
graduate as a specific post-materialist religious 'subject' (Foucault 1977) - very much
a late modern framing of self in educational discourse (see Grace 2004, 48; also
Wexler 1997) - in which non-materialist 'riches' such as the 'spirit of education' are
valued even while secular career goals are pursued (Srimulyani 2007, 93). In short, the
individual subjectivity of pesantren graduates is framed in terms of an outward-
seeking, entrepreneurial identity well fitted to the politics of an evolving Indonesian
knowledge economy in which the Muslim faith is devoutly kept.

Conclusion

The discussion above supports Foucault' s claim that power usually does not weigh on
students as a force that says no, even when it effectively does say no to many things
a pupil would like. Rather, schooling in a modern pesantren may be experienced by
pupils such as Khadijah as a force or 'spirit' that induces pleasure when the individual

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 230 P. Nilan

attains a legitimate discursive positioning within the regime of trut

within the institution. Discursive fields of knowledge in the modern
ordered so that faith-based learning is distinguished from, but closely t
discipline-based content learning. Taken together, the different modalit
'regime of truth' to produce the well-educated, devout, modern Muslim.
In conclusion, as a modern educational institution, the pesantren i
far-reaching spirit of education in pupils. This pedagogical capacity oper
through formal classroom learning processes, but through linked routin
bio-power and pastoral power in the daily life of the pondok and madra
living and learning conditions, pleasure/reward comes to be constituted
by the attainment of knowledge assumed to lead to future privileg
discourse of knowledge/education is valued in Indonesian Islamic t
religious practice at the deepest level. It is held that, in the modern wor
of knowledge/education - religious and secular - must be pursued if the
position themselves as khalifatullah fi al-'ardh - 'vice-regents' of G
discourse, the 'spirit of education' is understood to reflect nothing less
of God.

Notes
1 . This research has been funded over the years by C APSTRANS (Centre for Asia-Pacific
Social Transformation Studies), by the University of Newcastle, and by the Australian
Research Council. The current Australian Research Council-funded project team includes
Lyn Parker, Linda Bennett and Kathy Robinson.
2. The names of all informants have been changed to ensure anonymity.
3 . The Bugis (Buginese) comprise the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi. See Idrus (2004).

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