Race and Suicide in South Africa

by Fatima Meer

Overview

Originally published in 1976 Race and Suicide in South Africa synthesises the two dimensions of suicide: the personal and the social phenomenon. Its approach is Durkheimian in the use of court records, and phenomenological in the examination of actual cases. About 1500 cases of suicide in Durban from 1940-70 are analysed in terms of race, sex, occupation, marital status, economic status, family type and size, residential area, time and method used. What emerges is a revealing picture of suicide in South African ethnic groups. The findings confute the idea of Durkheim and others that behaviour in suicide conforms to certain universal principles and suggest the crucial role of particular social conditions in determining suicide trends, while at the same time challenging the proposition that a high suicide rate is associated with high status. Instead the author found that there were common emotional syndromes among suicides, but there were contributed to by different social factors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000643008
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/05/2022
Series:	Routledge Library Editions: South Africa , #14
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	330
File size:	450 KB

About the Author

Fatima Meer was was a South African writer, academic, screenwriter, and prominent anti-apartheid activist.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Suicide Incidence 1. Methodological Problems in the Study of Suicide 2. Sociological and Psychological Causes of Suicide 3. The Durban Records 4. The Incidence of Suicide Part 2: Suicide and Social Status 5. The Relation Between Suicide, Social Integration and Social Status 6. Race, Sex and Social Integration 7. Religion and Language as Indices of Social Status among Indians and their Relation to the Suicide Rate 8. Residential Areas, Status and Integration 9. Suicide, Age, Status and Integration 10. Occupation, Status and Integration Part 3: Suicide and Other Social Factors 11. Marital Status, Family and Suicide 12. Temporal Factors 13. Methods Adopted in Committing Suicide Part 4: Humanizing Statistics 14. The Probable Factors Precipitating Suicide 15. The Psychological and Emotional States of Suicides 16. Social Factors 17. The Construction of Suicide Models 18. Selected Cases in Greater Depth 19. Case Studies 20. Suicide Notes.

Editorial Reviews

‘…a fascinating and salutary study.’ Richard Thompson Journal of Sociology, Vol 14, Issue 3

From the Publisher