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 coroner’s common
sense construction of a suicide case
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Psychological and sociological autopsy
studies
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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 Klinenberg’s 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
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Data which are multi-modal, though not multimedia
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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
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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
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The analytical implications of working
with diverse documentary data
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The files reveal the following kinds of evidence
about the social context of suicide:
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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.
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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’).
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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 qualitatively-driven
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).
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References
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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.