Chapter 7 focuses on Iran’s tribal communities. Scholars outside of anthropology often misinterpret this category. Many regard tribal affiliations as a relic of Iran’s past and no longer relevant in contemporary Iran. They disparage what they call “tribalism” but do not define the term. They lack personal experience with Iran’s tribally organized peoples. Tribal affiliations and identities continue to be one of many significant connections for Iranians across the landscape (and for some Iranians in the diaspora). Iran’s tribal peoples are usually also part of Iran’s linguistic, religious, ethnic, and/or ethno-national minorities, each affiliation contributing to and sustaining the others. Tribal structures and organizations persist as meaningful strategies in rapidly changing political environments. For affiliates, tribal institutions are alternatives to state structures and organizations. Iran’s ruling elites regard tribally organized people as threats to their own power and privilege, and they try to suppress, relocate, or eliminate them. Iran’s tribal peoples are part of different kinds of political formations. Some form large cohesive confederacies. Some smaller entities are often dispersed across the landscape but still maintain some local autonomy. And some are part of large ethnolinguistic groupings, which have both tribal and nontribal components.