ABSTRACT
Informal cultural and religious networks define the social and political processes of the Ferghana Valley. The strength of these networks is assured by the region's powerful informal leaders, who are responsible for preserving and transmitting cultural and religious values to the next generations, and to the valley's geographical isolation from the major external political centers. Today the Ferghana Valley is emerging as a major locus of political and ideological struggle over identity on the national level of the three countries and with reference to the external religious actors. The administrative map of the Kyrgyz part of the Ferghana Valley has been redrawn repeatedly. During the last decades before independence the entire southern region-half of Kyrgyzstan-was combined in Osh province. A north-south line across Kyrgyzstan through the city of Osh defines the right and left wings, each of them with fifteen kin groups.
