Suicide as slow death: Towards a haunted sociology of suicide

Sociological research on suicide has tended to favour functionalist approaches, and quantitative methods. This article argues for an alternative engagement – drawing on interpretive paradigms, and inspired by ‘live’ methodologies, we make an argument for a haunted sociology of suicide. This approach, informed by Avery Gordon’s haunted sociological imagination and Lauren Berlant’s concept of slow […]

Using the modified socio-ecological model to address stigma against non-suicidal self-injury among adolescents in Malaysia

Non-suicidal self-injury is defined as an intentional injury to one’s body without a desire to cause death (1). It may involve acts that include, but are not limited to, damaging one’s own skin and self-poisoning for purposes that are not socially sanctioned (2). In this article, the term “non-suicidal self-injury” (NSSI) and its acronym NSSI […]

A social disorganizational theory of suicide

Over the last 20 years, suicide rates have grown across most demographic groups in the United States, making the sociological study of suicide as imperative now as it was in Durkheim’s day. For the most part, however, sociologists study suicide solely using Durkheim’s analytic strategy. The following article recovers a text on suicide long since forgotten […]

Socio-psychological factors of suicidal behaviour among adolescents

Psychologists interpret suicide as a reaction of pressure on the personality. There is no single reason why a person takes his/her life. The predisposing factors also vary from person to person and no single causal factor for suicide has been identified. Professionals count a large number of factors that are relevant to suicide attempts. It […]

Where is the social in the biopsychosocial model of suicide prevention?

Background: Each year, around 800,000 people die by suicide. The prevalence of suicidal behaviors is much higher when suicidal attempts and persistent self-injurious ideation are included. Therefore, suicide is a public health concern. Research has been sensitive to this problem, deepening the study of risk factors and the development of theoretical frameworks of suicidal behavior, with […]

Expanding our paradigms: Intersectional and socioecological approaches to suicide prevention

Despite increasing research on suicide, we continue to see rising rates, particularly among youth. In answering recent calls for critical suicidology and transdisciplinary approaches to research, I discuss expanding beyond the paradigmatic confines of suicidology by proposing two related approaches to improve our science: intersectionality theory and socioecological theory. Following a discussion of social identity […]

Suicide from a global perspective : psychosocial approaches

~

The construction of self-injury in the clinical literature: a sociological exploration.

This article presents a sociologically informed critique of a range of academic literatures relating to self-injury. It is noted how a lack of consensus on definitional issues, together with the inaccurate portrayal of the Òtypical self-injurerÓ in the clinical literature, has impeded the development of a sound understanding of self-injury. Some of the more problematic […]

Seeking Mino-pimatasiwin (the Good Life): an Aboriginal approach to social work practice.

Aboriginal peoples have been utilizing their own approaches to helping one another for centuries. Many Aboriginal social workers have incorporated these approaches or aspects of them in their professional practice. However, such approaches have not always been respected on their own merits by the social work profession. In recognition of this concern, the Canadian Association […]

Situating suicide as an anthropological problem: Ethnographic approaches to understanding self-harm and self-inflicted death.

More than a century after DurkheimÕs sociological classic placed the subject of suicide as a concern at the heart of social science, ethnographic, cross-cultural analyses of what lie behind peopleÕs attempts to take their own lives remain few in number. But by highlighting how the ethnographic method privileges a certain view of suicidal behaviour, we […]

Support Groups (IN: Suicide: Strategies and Interventions for Reduction and Prevention, ed. by S Palmer)

~

State Comrades and an Elderly Woman’s Suicide

In this article, I employ the concept of `unintended consequence’ for my analysis of an elderly woman’s suicide in China. The larger socio-political context of the narrative that will follow is the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. As the largest hydropower project ever built in the world, this dam entailed […]

Book Review-The Sociology of Suicide by F Cass

Book Review-Social Forces in Urban Suicide by R W Maris

~

Book Review-The Social Meanings of Suicide by J D Douglas

~

Female and Male Suicides in Batman, Turkey: Poverty, Social Change, Patriarchal Oppression and Gender Links

Suicide and Gender: Reading Suicide Through Butler’s Notion of Performativity

In an attempt to conceptualise suicide differently, this paper begins by briefly sketching Butler’s theorisation of performativity & explores some of the critical insights resulting from her work of specific importance to an analysis of self-destruction. Following this, the paper then examines the ways in which suicide can be theorised as performative in the Australian […]

The Disavowal of the Social in the American Reception of Durkheim

~

Book Review-The Unknown Sorokin: his Life in Russa and the Essay on Suicide, ed. by D Vagero, A Strickley, and I H Makinen, with P Sorokin

SIEC Book Reviews-Suicide: Closing the Exits, by R V Clark and D Lester, and Suicide From a Sociological Perspective, by D Lester

The books being reviewed are available for viewing at SIEC #1996-0994 and SIEC #1996-0993.

An Essay on Suicide and Disease in Canadian Indian Reserves: Bringing Durkheim Back in

~

Does Single Motherhood Protect Against Black Female Suicide?

The author tests the hypothesis that single motherhood among Black females is inversely related to Black female suicide rates. Results suggest that in fact, single motherhood among Black females is related to lower rates of suicide among Black females. A sociological explanation for this phenomenon is offered. (27 refs)

Suicide in Central and Eastern Europe: Trends, Causal Factors, Risk and Protective Constellations

Published in “Suicide Risk & Protective Factors in the New Millennium,” ed. by O T Grad