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Abangan, Santri, and Prijaji: A Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Robert B. Cruikshank
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Extract

Thanks to Clifford Geertz, the terms and concepts of abangan, santri, and prijaji have become familiar and frequently used by students of Javanese history, politics, and society. While he did not invent them, Geertz is responsible for their earliest and most thorough development as explicit and interrelated concepts, as seen most notably in his The Religion of Java and The Social History of An Indonesian Town. These studies are based upon his academic work as an anthropologist and his intermittent field work in “Modjokuto”, Java, from May 1953 to September 1964.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1972 , pp. 39 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1972

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References

1 Also see his “Religious Belief and Economic Behavior in a Central Javanese Town: Some Preliminary Considerations”.

2 Koentjaraningrat. Book Review of Clifford Geertz's The Religion of Java. The reviews by Professors Benda and DuBois also have some relevant points.

3 I thank Professor John R. W. Smail for useful suggestions on an earlier version of this essay. I am, of course, solely responsible for any errors.

4 Jay, Robert R.. Religion and Politics in Rural Central Java, p. 103Google Scholar.

5 Geertz, . The Religion of Java, p. 4Google Scholar.

6 And there are others, such as the Javanese conception of power; negara and desa; alus and kasar; and elite versus peasant goals.

7 Koentjaraningrat, . “Tjelapar: A Village in South Central Java”, in his, ed., Villages in Indonesia, p. 244–280Google Scholar: wong tjilik: “little people”/peasants wong saudagar: “small traders and merchants”.

8 Geertz, . The Religion of Java, p. 355Google Scholar.

9 Koentjaraningrat. Book Review of Geertz, Clifford's The Religion of Java, from Madjallah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra Indonesia, 1/2 (09 1963), p. 188–191Google Scholar.

10 Actually, Koentjaraningrat calls the occupational breakdown a social classification, including peasants, traders, merchants, prijaji, and ndara (“a rather limited upper class or nobility”). He has thus combined two types of vertical classification. Nonetheless, his distinction between vertical and horizontal may be discussed separately.

11 Geertz, . The Religion of Java, p. 5Google Scholar.

12 Ibid, p. 227.

13 Ibid, p. 7.

14 Du Bois in her review says (p. 603) “his data on the santri are predominantly sociological and political, whereas his abangan and prijaji data are predominantly ethnographic”.

15 C. Geertz. “The Development of the Javanese Economy: A Socio-Cultural Approach”, p. 2.

16 Geertz, C.. The Social History of An Indonesian Town, p. 125Google Scholar.

17 Ibid, p. 126.

18 Ibid, p. 127.

19 Ibid, p. 128–9.

20 “the conflict in the rural areas developed, not along class lines, but along the line of santri-abangan cleavage.” Rex Mortimer. “Class, Social Cleavage and Indonesian Communism”, p. 7.

21 Mortimer, op. cit.

22 W. F. Wertheim. “From aliran towards class struggle in the countryside of Java”.

23 Ibid. The title is misleading: his focus is not limited to Java, and the patron-client method of analysis is discussed at length.