Citation

Cetin U. Br. J. Sociol. 2017; 68(2): 145-166.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12234

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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.

Language: en

Keywords

Alevi Kurds; anomic suicide; Cosmopolitanism; rainbow underclass; transnational migration; zombie concepts