ABSTRACT
Local conditions and the overall social organization underpin the mechanisms that allow identity to shape an individual's behavior. Sub-ethnic identity, familial ties, and clan affiliation are particularly important to the social organization in Badakhshan. The territory typically had a cohesive religious identity, linguistic identity, and common practices and customs and functioned similar to a clan or a tribe. This chapter focuses on Frederik Barth's conceptualization to reveal how different informal organizations and their leaders influence border stability, both geographically and socially. It highlights some of the pressures that constrain the daily life of people living in the borderlands. The chapter deals with local scholars, villagers, community members, sellers in the bazaar, and local development workers from Khorog and Ishkashim and Shughnan, Ishkashem, the Wakhan Corridor and Balkh about how they conceptualized the meanings of the many words for leaders and local networks.
