Sociological: One of the important parts of the creation of a viable community is its self-definition. We must begin with an important sociological boundary that is not mentioned, yet is crucial for understanding the development of the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. At this point in the Book of Mormon, there is a natural boundary or the Nephites that consists of the bounds of their village an the dependant lands. The first "boundary"" is that of the people who look to Nephi as their leader - and at this point in time, this is a single community (the town center and the dependent rural areas, see Sorenson, John L. "The Settlements of Book of Mormon Peoples." In: : Nephite Culture and Society. New Sage Books, 1997, p. 148). The reason that this is important is that it differs from the sociological development in the New Testament where the new religion had to establish itself inside the physical and conceptual boundaries of multiple towns, and as separate from the factions inside the towns. The Nephite group is uniform at this point in time, where the religious, political, and conceptual boundaries were all precisely the same.
The language used to describe the inside /outside boundaries can tell us much about the way the community sees itself, and sees all others with which is must deal. In these conditions, it is quite logical that the primary language of group identity should be based on the entire group. Thus they were all Nephites who fit into that village definition. This carries the multiple distinctions of geography, politics, and religion, all of which may be assumed to be uniform throughout the group at this time.
If the internal designation is collective, it makes sense to create an external collective term as well. Thus Jacob notes that "the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites." The term Lamanite is a collective rather than a tribal designation. It corresponds to an internal collective term "Nephite" that also is not tribal designation. The way in which Jacob phrases this distinction may be instructive also. The implication is of a greater number of Lamanites that can be distinguished only in that anyone who does not fall into that group is Lamanite. Meeks notes that "the insider/outsider language invariably implies a negative perception of the outside society, even when the immediate function of the dualistic expressions is to reinforce the internal ordering of the group." (Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians. Yale University Press. 1983, p. 95).
Even at this very early date, the connotations of the term Lamanite are absolutely pejorative. The Nephite = good, Lamanite = bad correlation is sufficiently well known from the Book of Mormon that it need not be documented. Even modern readers quickly adopt this very same attitude. The early social development of Nephite society was built on a natural geo-political boundary, and reinforced by creating an insider/outsider terminology of Nephite and Lamanite. Of course this does not mean that all Lamanites were "bad" - only that because of the necessary social distinctions of the Nephite community, all outsiders were seen in a negative light, and labeled with this collective name of "Lamanites."
The last piece of information we have is that inside of the larger community the kin-based organization continued. Therefore there were Nephites, but among the Nephites as a collective name, there were specific divisions that were based on kin groups. This internal kin-based organization appears to have strong parallels in the Mesoamerican context. Formative sites already show evidence of internal organizations: "shortly after 600 BC, the village of Moyotzingo, Puebla, was divided into at least two residential areas…at Naranjito there seemingly were eastern and western residential areas." (Flannery, Kent V. "Two Possible Village Subdivisions: The Courtyard Group and the Residential Ward." In: The Early Mesoamerican Village. ed. Kent V. Flannery. Academic Press, 1976, p. 73). While these early divisions appear to be related perhaps more to status than kinship, the principle of the internal divisions is the same. Later Maya political organizations to appear to have distinctions based on hereditary clans (Schele, Linda, and Peter Matthews. The Code of Kings. Scribner. 1998, p. 299).
The religious history of the Quiche (long post-dating the Book of Mormon, but perhaps indicative of tradition) also maintains the clan divisions inside the larger polity:
"The achieved glory there. Their marvelous seats sand cushions were arranged; the varieties of splendor were sorted out for each one of the lords of the nine lineages. One by one they took their places:
The nine lords of the Cauecs.
The nine lords of the Greathouses.
The four lords of the Lord Quiches.
The two lords of the Zaquics.
They became numerous. Those who were in the following of a given lord were also numerous, but the lord came first, at the head of his vassals. There were masses, masses lineages for each of the lords." (The Popol Vuh.. Tr. Dennis Tedlock. Simon and Schuster. 1985, p. 210).
If we may presume that the Nephite kin organizations worked (at least eventually) in a reasonably Mesoamerican fashion, each would have its own leaders and the patriarch of the clan, responsible to and for the kin unit, and subject to the ruler of the city. The internal organization of these clans would be sufficient even in large cities to maintain some form of order among chaos, and will be a significant explanation for the tribal descriptions of the Nephites after a general political failure nearer to the end of the Book of Mormon text.