Unequal Learning Access and Distributed Intergenerational Learning in the Islamic Atib Ko Ambai Tradition
Abstract
Atib Ko Ambai brings communal remembrance of God, customary knowledge, and intergenerational learning into the religious life of a Malay Muslim community in Riau, Indonesia. Its continuity raises a question that participation alone cannot answer: who can access the relationships through which ritual knowledge becomes meaningful. This focused ethnography examines how Kubu Babussalam organizes access to learning. Six field visits between February and July 2026 combined observation, documentation, and interviews with ten purposively selected participants, including four young people with contrasting involvement. Triangulation of sources and methods, reflexive documentation, and examination of divergent evidence supported iterative coding, cross-participant comparison, and theoretical interpretation. A Community of Practice informed the analysis of participation and access, while Freirean dialogical education highlighted opportunities for questioning and interpretation. Knowledge circulated among customary and religious leaders, elders, and families, yet the four youth cases encountered different combinations of invitations, responsibilities, and explanations. Limited involvement could coexist with willingness to learn. The study develops distributed intergenerational learning as a case-specific analytical construct connecting the distribution of pedagogical functions with learners’ access to them. Experiential-imitative and dialogical-intentional transmission describe complementary analytical mechanisms, with evidence for the latter comprising both explanatory encounters and participants’ requests for further dialogue. Domestic conversation and digital documentation appeared as supporting pathways. The findings suggest that sustaining this Islamic tradition involves making its religious and cultural meanings accessible alongside maintaining its performance.
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