Maintaining solidarity: A look back at the Mormon village

The present study suggests, in contrast to community dissolution theories, that community is maintained through a dialogue between ideological commitm ent and cooperative action within a cultural framework. The research follow s up on a classic rural community study series, that of Lowry Nelson's Morm on villages. Replicating Nelson's ethnographic methods, the author reevalua tes the earlier findings and extends the data by several decades. Nelson's findings on Mormon village dynamics are still relevant, although in modifie d forms, largely through community members' commitments to a common ideolog y. The author concludes that affectively based communities persist despite modernization. Mormon solidarity has endured because of its early articulat ion of expected interaction with the broader social world and because of it s commitment to both ideals and practical action.