In Iranian Baluchistan, the Sarhadi tribes were politically independent during the later Qajar period, but were effectively encapsulated by Reza Shah in 1935 after a military campaign. Following the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in the late 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, the Baluch tribes rose and fought Persian Sistanis for control of Zahedan, the provincial capital, but were eventually suppressed by the forces of the Islamic Revolution. Encapsulated once again, the tribes have been submerged in a flood of Shia Persians from outside the province, who have rapidly increased urbanization, commerce, and education. A resistence movement, the Jundallah, based in the Rigi tribe, has attacked state security forces on behalf of the interests of the Baluchi Sunni population.

The Kirgiz tribes were incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and launched a costly and losing rebellion in the early 20th century. Under the Russian Empire, and its successor the Soviet Union, tribes as independent polities were suppressed. But the tribes continued as identity and interest groups, capable of mobilizing members, and sought and won patronage on their behalf. With the fall of the U.S.S.R. in 1992, some Kirgiz turned to a revivification and formalization of tribes (just as others turned to Islam or Western development) in response to the vacuum of organization and purpose.

This paper will explore situation of Pastoral nomads after revolution in Iran. With an overview on political, environmental, and religious changings of nomads life after revolution, this paper try to give an up-to-date report regarding the actual roles of pastoral nomads in Iranian policy.

I investigate the changing role played by named descent groups, which I will refer to as 'tribes', in Libya from the early 1900s to now. Focusing on the types and instances of reported interactions between Libyan tribes and the Senussi religious fraternity, Qaddafi's revolutionary committees, and the modern militias that prosecuted Libya's most recent war, shows how Libyan tribes have changed and adapted to new socioeconomic circumstances. For instance, tribal interaction with the Senussi was a seemingly structural instance of inter-group mediation through shared religious sentiment (Evans-Pritchard 1949, Peters 1968), whereas tribal influence on local elections (circa 1975) seems a clearer instance of political complimentary opposition wherein local Shaikhs attempted to equalize the respective representation of oppositional parties (Davis 1987). Drawing nearer to the present it becomes more difficult to ascertain - with history's ad hoc precision - categorical instances of tribal interaction with Libyan life and politics. Granting this, media reportage of the war in Libya points, in most cases, to some level of tribal participation/influence inside of the various rebel militias that supported the National Transitional Council. Research I conducted in the summer of 2012 aimed to more fully discern the nature of this involvement.

Foundational research on identity formation attributed more on the communitarian notion of belonging and solidarity. This notion is recently being questioned, arguing that the identity formation is more complex and ambivalent than previously depicted. The notion of 'ethnic identity' is constructed, reconstructed and deconstructed (as in the case of Scheduled Tribes of Narayanpatna block of Koraput district, Odisha, India) through socio-historical processes. Identities are contextual and develop as a result of the tribal communities' day-to-day interaction with outsiders in Odisha. It has to be understood that borders and identities are human creations, their constructs affected by our own political perception. Every group identity/boundary is an expression and exercise of power in one form or the other. In India, identities of inclusion/exclusion play a major role in societal allocation of resources due to various attempts of ethnic groups to favour their group members over non-members. This disposition becomes important in social and political life when people and group of people have to compete for scarce resources. Most of these boundaries are fluid and contestable, calling for an understanding of the social, political, cultural and economic forces that cause these boundaries to shift and be altered over time. Engaging the lives of the real people caught on the margins can lead to new understandings of often invisible forces shaping and reshaping their identities. So, the major concern of the paper is to explore the interplay between different forces and (de)construction of ethnic identities and its ramification for Scheduled Tribes in Odisha, India.