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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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cetin, Umit (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
In: The British journal of sociology
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Keywords:
Alevi Kurds
Anomic suicide
Durkheim
Rainbow underclass
Transnational migration
Zombie concepts
Description
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.
ISSN:1468-4446
DOI:10.1111/1468-4446.12234