Phenomenology, Cultural Meaning, and the Curious Case of Suicide: Localizing the Structure-culture Dialectic

Abstract

Sociology has largely followed Durkheim’s lead in ignoring the question: why do people die by suicide? This negation prioritizes a positivist, structuralist approach and stymies sociology’s contribution by closing off a wide range of tools sociologists might employ. An interpretivist turn in suicide studies accompanied by the growing adoption of qualitative methodology has opened up an array of opportunities to produce insights lost in a Durkheimian approach, but has yet to confront their own weaknesses. This paper shows we need not abandon either tradition, advocating for a third path that integrates the strengths of both approaches.