ABSTRACT
The socio-historical model of countercultural deviance will indicate the range and character of parallel phenomena, and place the contemporary emergence of communal groups in the context of social theory. Of course countercultural communal groups such as those prevalent in the USA since the middle 1960s are simply among the more easily discernible aspects of pervasive shifts in social orientation among portions of a population. The understanding of communal groups provides the possibility of coming to terms with more diffuse countercultures and their implications for the societies to which they offer critiques. Diversity among communal groups is good reason to avoid any narrow definition based on structural criteria such as absence of private property or a common source of income. Communal groups are of importance for their innovative approaches to the questions of how, and for what, to live. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
