Islamic Boarding Schools, Religious Schools, and Religious Identities in South Jember: The Struggle of Local Traditions and Global Modernity

Abstract

outh Jember is known as an area rich in religious diversity, where Islamic boarding schools, religious schools, and
local religious practices interact with each other in a dynamic social landscape. On the one hand, pesantren function as a center
for traditional Islamic education and da'wah, while on the other hand, local beliefs persist as expressions of spirituality that
are firmly rooted in the culture of the community. This struggle is even more complex when global modernity through the
media, migration flows, and economic transformation presents new values that affect the construction of the religious identity
of local communities. However, previous research has tended to focus more on the dominance of pesantren as formal religious
institutions, while the dynamics of faith streams and their encounter with global modernity are still rarely explored. This
research gap is what opens up space for more comprehensive studies. The novelty of this research is the analysis of the
interaction between religious entities of Islamic boarding schools, religious streams, and global modernity in shaping the
religious identity of the people of South Jember. The formulation of this research problem is first: How is the interaction of
pesantren and religious schools in shaping the religious identity of the people of South Jember? Second, how does global
modernity affect the struggle of local traditions and religions in the region? The research method used is a qualitative approach
with ethnographic studies, involving participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and discourse analysis of local religious
practices. Provisional results show that pesantren play a hegemonic role in defining orthodoxy, while faith streams find
adaptive ways to survive through symbols, rituals, and cultural narratives.