Durkheim, ethnography and suicide: researching young male suicide in the transnational London Alevi-Kurdish community

This study of the unusually high incidence of young male suicides in the transnational Alevi-Kurdish community in London, demonstrates the benefits of combining a Durkheimian structural approach with a qualitatively driven ethnographic methodology. Examination of the life experiences of those who committed suicide is located within the underlying social organization of the transnational community in which the suicides occurred, enabling us to explore unanticipated events that render certain groups more at risk of committing suicide. Interviews with significant others facilitated a deeper understanding of the personal life paths of those who committed suicide. The suicide cases followed a particular assimilation trajectory that gradually positioned them in a “rainbow underclass”, an anomic social position leading to suicide. Despite the sensitivity of the subject, participants appreciated the opportunity to discuss their experience frankly and contribute towards a better understanding of the underlying causes in a desperate attempt to prevent further suicides.

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

Against Beck’s claims that conventional sociological concepts and categories are zombie categories, this paper argues that Durkheim’s theoretical framework in which suicide is a symptom of an anomic state of society can help us understand the diversity of trajectories that transnational migrants follow and that shape their suicide rates within a cosmopolitan society. Drawing on ethnographic data collected on eight suicides and three attempted suicide cases of second-generation male Alevi Kurdish migrants living in London, this article explains the impact of segmented assimilation/adaptation trajectories on the incidence of suicide and how their membership of a ‘new rainbow underclass’, as a manifestation of cosmopolitan society, is itself an anomic social position with a lack of integration and regulation.

Researching suicide, attempted suicide and near-lethal self-harm by offenders in community settings: Challenges for future research

Suicide is a serious international health problem and is more likely to occur in vulnerable populations such as offenders. There is an abundance of research into suicides of prisoners, but few studies have been carried out on suicides of offenders serving community sentences. This article identifies and evaluates the limited research that is available. Recommendations for future research are made, including how in-depth interviews can provide important information about near lethal incidents from the service users’ perspective, and how international comparisons could be helpful in understanding this problem further.

An exploratory taxonomic study of IMP Group conference papers

The paper describes exploratory research into the nature of IMP conference papers with particular focus on content. A qualitative analysis of the proceedings of the 16th annual IMP conference is presented. The results provide insights into the diversity of academic thought that fuels the development of the IMP network and allows us to begin charting the development of knowledge structures within past IMP conferences. Of particular interest are, firstly, the tentative knowledge structure that emerges, secondly, the depth of analysis that emerges from using multi dimension coding and thirdly the utility of the process of successive categorisation.

Floating on the same plane: metropolis, money and the culture of abstraction

This article argues that the emergence of a trans-disciplinary discourse of ‘visual culture’ must be understood as, above all, a constitutively urban phenomenon. More specifically, it is in the historically new form of the capitalist metropolis, as described most famously by Simmel, that the ‘hyper-stimulus’ of modern visual culture has its social and spatial conditions. Paradoxically, however, it is as a result of this that visual culture studies is also intrinsically ‘haunted’ by a certain spectre of the invisible: one rooted in those forms of ‘real abstraction’ which Marx identifies with the commodity and the money form. Considering, initially, the canonical urban visual forms of the collage and the spectacle, these are each read in a certain relation to Simmel’s account of metropolitan life and of the money form, and, through this, to what the author claims are those forms of social and spatial abstraction that must be understood to animate them. Finally, the article returns to the entanglement of the visible and invisible entailed by this, and concludes by making some tentative suggestions about something like a paradoxical urban ‘aesthetic’ of abstraction on such a basis.

Probation staff experiences of managing suicidal and self-harming service users.

The current study sought to explore the impact of suicidal behaviours on probation staff, in relation to their experiences of working with probation service users who have carried out suicide, attempted suicide or self-harm. Thirteen in-depth interviews were carried out with probation staff who had direct contact with probation service users in one probation area, and had varying degrees of experience of managing suicidal or self-injurious service users. These were analysed using thematic analysis and five themes were identified. Findings indicate that staff felt that suicide and self-harm by service users are serious issues which need to be recognized and dealt with in an effective yet compassionate manner. Not attending the suicide prevention training, or lack of experience, were perceived as restricting their ability to know how to deal with these individuals, and offer support. Furthermore, staff were emotionally affected by these incidents and it is recommended that they should continue to be provided with access to appropriate support services after an incident.

Comment: The Instagram Lawscape

Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos has recently published a collection of what he calls “picpoems”, which were poems inspired by pictures that he took using an iPhone. The pictures were taken and subsequently listened to through a posthuman methodology, which resulted in his composition of the poems. This comment comprises a conversation between Pravin Jeyaraj and Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, in which Jeyaraj explores how the picpoems offer a visualisation of being inside the lawscape, which is an environment created by an invisible law. He argues that the role of law is to highlight the lack of control we have over our bodies and how suicide is the only way we can have any form of control over our escape.

Localism as restorative politics; social capital and anti-politics in the London Borough of Burgundia

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the political implications of policies and measures designed to promote “localism”. That is to say, the devolution of power down to a neighbourhood level, as enacted under the 2011 Localism Act. The implementation of localism in London boroughs will be examined. The context is the current concern over disengagement in an era of “anti-politics”, so it is intended to gain an understanding of how localism is interpreted and implemented on the ground. A tentative thesis, of a “restorative politics”, is proposed, such that localism is dynamic and is generating healthy political activity which counters anti-politics in the local community. This could have profound implications for the political parties locally and at Westminster. The extant theories about localism include constructivist interpretations suggesting that a neo-liberal localism is anti-political. This is contested. An emerging narrative heralding a new dawn of empowerment, and related themes concerning social capital, subsidiarity and anti-politics are reviewed. A necessarily empirical approach is adopted in an essentially functionalist frame of reference. There is a review of both academic and policy literature, combined with interviews of professionals involved in localism. This paper is designed to scope a future more substantial piece of research. The conference brief asks; “what scales or levels are appropriate for organising politics in this century”. In a century so far characterised by disillusionment, democratic deficits and abstention, the answer may be; local. The Good Life is lived locally in shared experience and familiar surroundings, hitherto not much amenable to local change. Burgundia is a reference to the film “Passport to Pimlico” (1949), when ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the political implications of policies and measures designed to promote “localism”. That is to say, the devolution of power down to a neighbourhood level, as enacted under the 2011 Localism Act. The implementation of localism in London boroughs will be examined. The context is the current concern over disengagement in an era of “anti-politics”, so it is intended to gain an understanding of how localism is interpreted and implemented on the ground. A tentative thesis, of a “restorative politics”, is proposed, such that localism is dynamic and is generating healthy political activity which counters anti-politics in the local community. This could have profound implications for the political parties locally and at Westminster. The extant theories about localism include constructivist interpretations suggesting that a neo-liberal localism is anti-political. This is contested. An emerging narrative heralding a new dawn of empowerment, and related themes concerning social capital, subsidiarity and anti-politics are reviewed. A necessarily empirical approach is adopted in an essentially functionalist frame of reference. There is a review of both academic and policy literature, combined with interviews of professionals involved in localism. This paper is designed to scope a future more substantial piece of research. The conference brief asks; “what scales or levels are appropriate for organising politics in this century”. In a century so far characterised by disillusionment, democratic deficits and abstention, the answer may be; local. The Good Life is lived locally in shared experience and familiar surroundings, hitherto not much amenable to local change. Burgundia is a reference to the film “Passport to Pimlico” (1949), when a London neighbourhood declared independence and its citizens temporarily created the Good Life for themselves. Is the 21st century localism generating a restorative politics?