A qualitatively-driven

sociological autopsy of 100

suicides
Jonathan Scourfield
Ben Fincham
Susanne Langer

The development of
sociological research on
suicide
Durkheim and the social context of an
ostensibly individual act. Social facts
about suicide rates and social integration
Jack Douglas we need to understand
subjective meanings to social actors
J. M. Atkinson the coroners common
sense construction of a suicide case

Psychological and sociological

autopsy studies

The tradition of psychological autopsy studies of

suicide
The study of individual suicides is generally seen
as irredeemably psychological
The term social autopsy used by Klinenberg to
mean the macro-level social and political context
(of a disaster the Chicago heat wave)
Duneier claims that Klinenbergs work succumbs
to the ecological fallacy by not finding out about
individuals stories
Can there be a qualitative sociology of individual
suicides - the study of both what we know about
suicidal lives and the knowledge itself?

Multi-modal data on individual

suicides
Coroners files on 100 cases a district
which includes a medium-sized city, an
industrial town and a rural area
[also:
a small number of in-depth cases:
interviews with relatives, friends and
professionals
Media accounts]

Diverse data in case files

Data which are multi-modal, though not multimedia

Forms filled out by coroner

Scribbles on file wallets
Police statements from witnesses and significant
others
Forensic pathology reports
Medical letters and reports, especially psychiatric
ones
Suicide notes
Mobile phone records
Photographs
Other: letters to the coroner, newspaper clippings

Ethical implications of working

with suicide case files
The challenge of preserving both
anonymity and context
Access to the files
The emotional well-being of the researcher

The analytical implications of

working with diverse
documentary data

The files reveal the following kinds of evidence

about the social context of suicide:

The preoccupations of the deceased in the days leading

up to the suicide. Perhaps also some longer-term social
history
The medicalisation of suicide concentration on
diagnosis even where the social context is compelling
The impact on families and friends
Lay beliefs about mental health problems

Theoretical implications the need for a holistic

and psycho-social approach.
Cautious naturalism (Fine, 1997)
Making explicit where interpretation comes from
making analysis visible.

How do we make sense of

accounts of suicide in
coroners files?
The conditions under which the accounts
are constructed.
What we do and do not know.
We have to work with tensions within and
between sources recognise them and
resolve them or incorporate them where
possible.
Not just case studies. We have 100 of
these, so some quantification will also be
needed.

Qualitatively-driven mixed
methods via N-vivo and SPSS
N-vivo attributes are often quantified, but
nodes can be too
Code whole cases under themes (nodes)
On the N-vivo Project Pad, click
documents in the menu bar at the top,
then Profile coding for all documents and
then number of passages. This produces
a table that can be exported to SPSS (click
file then export).

An example of quantified
coding
Relationships problems etc * Problems related to children Crosstabulation

Relationship problems
etc

no

yes

Total

Count
% within relationships
problems etc
Count
% within relationships
problems etc
Count
% within whole sample

Problems related to
children
no
yes
42
3
93.3%
26
47.3%
68
68.0%

6.7%
29
52.7%
32
32.0%

Total
45
100.0%
55
100.0%
100
100.0%

Final thoughts. A qualitativelydriven approach to

sociological autopsy can be:
Both case-based and variable-based
Inductive more than deductive
Encompassing tensions and even
contradictions in data rather than
eliminating them, to provide messy, not
smooth accounts (Law, 2004).

References

Atkinson, J.M. (1978) Discovering Suicide. Studies in the Social

Organization of Sudden Death. Pittsburgh, PA: University of
Pittsburgh Press..
Douglas, J. (1967) The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton,
Princeton University Press.
Duneier, Mitchell (2006) Ethnography, the ecological fallacy, and the
1995 Chicago Heat Wave. American Sociological Review 71: 679688.
Durkheim, E. (2002 [1897]) Suicide, London, Routledge.
Fine, G. A. (1997) Scandal, social conditions and the creation of
public attention: Fatty Arbuckle and the Problem of Hollywood.
Social Problems, 44 (3): 297-323.
Klinenberg, E. (2002) Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in
Chicago, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Law, J. (2004) After Method: Mess in Social Science Research,
Routledge, London
Mason, J. (2006) Mixing methods in a qualitatively-driven way.
Qualitative Research, 6 (1): 9-25.