Black Suicide in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: An Examination of the Racial Inequality and Social Integration-Regulation Hypotheses

Racial differences in the characteristics of firearm suicide decedents in the United States.

“…In their analysis of African American suicide across U.S. metropolitan areas, Burr and colleagues (Burr, Hartman, & Matteson, 1999) found that the risk for suicide was higher among African Americans living in areas of high occupational and economic inequality between Whites and African Americans. Our multivariate results found no relationship between socioeconomic status, measured by income, and firearm suicide among African Americans.…”

Cultural considerations in adolescent suicide prevention and psychosocial treatment.

“…Greater awareness of social and economic inequities in the aftermath of the civil rights movement may have increased the vulnerabilities of young African Americans (Burr, Hartman, & Matteson, 1999). For example, Joe (2006) has speculated that many young African Americans subscribe to the ideal in America that opportunities should be limited only by a person's skills and motivation.…”

Cosmopolitanism and the relevance of ‘zombie concepts’: the case of anomic suicide amongst Alevi Kurd youth

“…Even though the experience of the AK migrants (both the first generation, but particularly the second generation) show cosmopolitan characteristics as defined by Beck, understanding the high suicide rates amongst the second generation does not force us to abandon the 'zombie concepts' offered by Durkheim in explaining suicide. As demonstrated by Durkheim, and supported by many contemporary studies (Rubinstein 2002;Burr, Hartman and Matteson 1999;Leavey 1999;Hassan 1995Hassan , 1983Hezel 1989), high suicide rates are the consequence of a lack of regulation and integration, a symptom of the maladjustment of society. Therefore a consequence of the move towards cosmopolitanism, which by its diverse and transnational nature weakens local and national ties of belonging, is an increase in anomie.…”

“…Much of the sociological literature on suicide and migration confirms Durkheim's analytical framework that integration, regulation and community cohesion play an important role in understanding suicide amongst ethnic migrants (Baudelot and Establet 2008;Rubinstein 2002;Burr, Hartman and Matteson 1999;Leavey 1999;Hassan 1995Hassan 1983Hezel 1989). It has been empirically demonstrated by scholars such as Portes (1999) and Morawska (2009) that the level and direction of integration, regulation, and sense of belonging, that is the community cohesion, is predominantly shaped by a set of structural and agentic factors such as the context of departure from the home country, reception into the host country, continuing transnational engagements and the social background of the migrants -an interplay of national and transnational factors which corresponds to Beck's description of a cosmopolitan condition.…”

“…My research combines them to conduct an ethnographic study into suicide that locates the personal biographies and life experiences of those who committed suicide within a Durkheimian analysis of the underlying social organization of the transnational community of the AKs in London (a full account of the methodology can be found in Cetin 2015Cetin , 2014. More recently, Durkheim's notion of social integration and regulation as determinants of suicide rates is supported to a significant extent by research that has been conducted amongst minority and migrant communities (see Rubinstein 2002;Burr, Hartman and Matteson 1999;Leavey 1999;Hassan 1983Hassan , 1995Hezel 1989). From Beck's perspective of methodological cosmopolitanism, Durkheim's concepts and categories used in his study of suicide are zombie concepts because they were formulated during first modernity and from a perspective of 'methodological nationalism'.…”