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 mi...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
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| In: |
The British journal of sociology
Year: 2017, Volume: 68, Issue: 2, Pages: 145-166 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-4446 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/1468-4446.12234 |