Being fashionable yet modest: Negotiation and the politics of fashion among santriwati at pesantren

Abstract

Santriwati has been labeled as an old-fashioned people who studies a more specific way of religion without knowing much about the social and reality in the society outside pesantren. Santriwati were also perceived to dress herself conservatively and old-fashioned. Different from that image, in one of female pesantren in Krapyak, Yogyakarta (here called PiK), the santriwati dress themselves more fashionable. It might be because of the influence they attain from outside pesantren, since they are allowed to study in college (formal education). In spite of the santriwati perceive that the fashion rules in PiK are moderate than other pesantrens they have known, there remain some who broke the rules while claiming that they are fashionable without exhibiting their body’s shape. Those conflicting evidences I attempted to establish in this study. By doing so, I aim to establish how the santriwati of PiK constitute meaning of themselves through negotiation in the fashion way. I find that santriwati do numbers of negotiation practices through the way they dress to actively conforming the rules. As for santriwati of the Security division, they have a privilege to suggest about certain dress based on the development in the society and fashions available in the market. Nevertheless, pengasuh’s decision has the higher power and any changes in the rules must be a verdict from pengasuh called dawuh. Thus, it would be easier to reconcile when the santriwati complaint. Therefore, Security division utilize pengasuh as a ‘safeguard’, regardless of the obedience.

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