Sociological autopsy: An integrated approach to the study of suicide in men

Abstract

This paper's main aim is to argue the methodological case for a particular approach to researching the sociology of suicide. By way of illustrating the use of this approach it also offers some brief examples of substantive findings about the gendered character of men's suicides. The first half of the article explains and justifies the research approach. This is a qualitatively-driven mixed method and dual paradigm study of individual suicides. It is a sociological study which draws on the tradition of psychological autopsies of suicide; hence the term 'sociological autopsy'. The second half of the article offers brief illustrative findings from a specific research project which employed the sociological autopsy approach. This was a study of 100 suicide case files from a coroner's office in the UK. There is discussion of common sense assumptions about suicide in men; the construction of evidence in case files; a typology of gendered suicides where relationship breakdown seems to be the principal trigger; and the value of case-based analysis, with a single case discussed in some detail.

‘Dead people don’t claim’: A psychopolitical autopsy of UK austerity suicides

“…In contrast, this research seeks to flesh out a different kind of autopsy as an analytic tool: a psychopolitical autopsy based on the social/sociological autopsy developed by Klinenberg (2002), and used to research suicide by Scourfield et al (2012). While a social autopsy dissects the interlacing relations underlying suicide by embedding individual-level factors within a broader social context, a psychopolitical autopsy further develops this by also attending to the mechanisms through which social context (in this case austerity) comes to be rearticulated and reconfigured as individual crisis, and the implications this has for public recognition of austerity suicides as well as for culpability.…”

Characteristics of people dying by suicide after job loss, financial difficulties and other economic stressors during a period of recession (2010–2011): A review of coroners׳ records

“…We are aware of two previous detailed investigations of suicides due to economic / employment-related difficulties, although neither of these focused on suicide deaths during a period of economic recession (Scourfield et al, 2012;Stack and Wasserman, 2007). Both studies were based on reviews of information recorded by the Medical Examiner/Coroner, so differences between studies in the proportion of people with economic or employment related difficulties could reflect differences in the extensiveness of information noted in the inquest records.…”

“…In over two-thirds of the deaths, multiple strains appeared to contribute -particularly economic strain accompanied by relationship difficulties. In a study of suicide deaths between 2002 and 2005 in an area of Wales, debt and employment problems were mentioned as contributors to 23% of male suicides (Scourfield et al, 2012). Neither of these studies was carried out during a period of recession.…”

Understanding Suicide Attempts Among Gay Men From Their Self-perceived Causes

“…Though constituting only a sliver of mainstream suicide research (Hjelmeland and Knizek, 2010), some qualitative studies from Europe have underscored the primacy of inter-personal relationship issues in completed suicides (Shiner et al, 2009;Scourfield et al, 2012) and non-fatal suicide attempts involving hospitalization (Valach et al, 2006). For the latter, studies have also highlighted psychological distress and unsolvable problems (Cleary, 2012;Skogman Pavulans et al, 2012).…”