DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.185976.2 ISSN: 2046-1402

Living Civic Virtue in Nahdlatul Ulama Pesantren Families: A Schutzian Phenomenological Study of Spiritual and Familial Meaning in Purwakarta, Indonesia

Zindan Baynal Hubi, Karim Suryadi, Siti Nurbayani, Asep Mahpudz, Ryan Prayogi, MIrza Hardian, Dwi Nanda Akhmad Romadhon
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Background Studies of civic formation in Indonesian pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) have focused on the kiai and the institutional curriculum, while the family as a site where religious and civic meanings are lived has received little attention. Prevailing accounts also tend to evaluate pesantren against liberal-democratic conceptions of civic virtue, leaving the specific, religiously grounded form of civic commitment in these communities under-described. This study examines how civic virtue is experienced and transmitted in the everyday life of families connected to Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) pesantren, using spiritual well-being and family resilience as sensitizing concepts. Methods A phenomenological interview study was conducted using Alfred Schutz’s social phenomenology as an interpretive lens, positioned within methodological agnosticism toward participants’ transcendent claims. Ten family units (30 participants: father, mother, and santri) were purposively recruited from three NU pesantren in Purwakarta, West Java. Each participant took part in two in-depth interviews in Indonesian, Sundanese, or Javanese, supplemented by field observation. Analysis proceeded through meaning-unit identification, typification analysis, relevance mapping, and cross-family synthesis, with independent peer coding and member checking. Results Three intersubjective structures were identified: (1) the pesantren as a taken-for-granted moral horizon of family life; (2) a shared typification of civic virtue as religious obligation ( hubbul wathan minal iman ), operating as recipe knowledge for civic situations; and (3) layered because-motives (kiai authority, family memory of the 1945 Resolusi Jihad ) and in-order-to motives (intergenerational continuity, national unity). Civic judgment was strongly referenced to the kiai and to sanad , and one recently relocated family expressed marked uncertainty about the civic influence of the pesantren. Conclusions In these families, civic virtue takes the form of a communitarian, religiously grounded civic loyalty sustained by a shared stock of religious-civic meanings, which we term intersubjective civic capital. This capital provides strong bonding resources and resistance to misinformation and radicalism, but it rests on deference to religious authority and offers limited support for autonomous civic deliberation. The findings are interpretive and context-bound, and they suggest propositions for comparative research rather than generalisable claims.

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