scholarly journals Representing suicide: Giving voice to a desire to die?

2021 ◽  
pp. 136345932110468
Author(s):  
Ian Marsh ◽  
Rachel Winter ◽  
Lisa Marzano
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Knowledge And Beliefs ◽  
Planning Decision ◽  
Desire To Die ◽  
Pro Choice

Drawing on interview and online ethnographic data from a study of suicide on the railways, this paper describes the ways in which many of the concepts, assumptions and practices of mainstream suicide prevention are challenged in the accounts of those who are planning, or have enacted, a suicide attempt. We reflect on the ethical dilemmas which can arise for researchers (and practitioners) when lived experience accounts diverge – theoretically, morally and in terms of practical implications – from present-day expert ones. In online, ‘pro-choice’ suicide discussions, people describe beliefs, attitudes, ways of thinking and acting which stand in contrast to existing professional and clinical descriptions of suicide and suicidal behaviour. Most obviously, there is often a rejection of ‘pro-life’ positions, which are framed as ideological, oppressive and naïve. For researchers engaging in online ethnography of ‘pro-choice’ spaces, dilemmas can arise in relation to the representation of perspectives which fundamentally challenge not only prevailing norms within suicide research and prevention practice but socio-cultural norms more widely. Similar issues can arise when considering how best to represent research participants when their accounts diverge from accepted ‘expert’ knowledge and beliefs. In-depth qualitative interviews with those who have thought about or attempted to take their own life indicate that existing theories and models of suicide which start from assumptions of deficit and pathology underestimate the extent to which suicide, as the end result of an often-complex series of actions, requires a person to engage in logistical processes of planning, decision-making, imagination and adaptation. The accounts described here, gathered using two different methodological approaches, highlight the ethical issues which can surface when there are competing claims to (expert) knowledge, as well as differences in beliefs, attitudes and moral stance towards life and death. We argue that researchers need to reflect on their own ethical-moral position in relation to suicide, and on the practical consequences of their privileging of some voices at the expense of other, less well represented, ones.

Special Review: ETHICAL ISSUES OF LIFE AND DEATH

1980 ◽  
Vol 2 (10) ◽  
pp. 581-583
Author(s):  
Ronald Winton ◽  
J. C. Warden ◽  
Steven Lockwood ◽  
Norman Stenhouse ◽  
Robert Hecker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Special Review

A Qualitative Study Exploring Well-Being and the Potential Impact of Work-Related Stress Among Commercial Airline Pilots

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Paul Cullen ◽  
Joan Cahill ◽  
Keith Gaynor
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Related Stress ◽  
Airline Pilots ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Commercial Airline ◽  
Related Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Increasing evidence suggests that commercial airline pilots can experience physical, mental, and social health difficulties. Qualitative interviews with commercial airline pilots explored the relationship between work-related stress and well-being. Participatory workshops involving pilots were conducted. The methodology of this action-based research involved a blend of person-centered design approaches; specifically, “stakeholder evaluation” and “participatory design.” The findings further support the hypothesis that pilot well-being is being negatively affected by the nature of their work. The biopsychosocial model of the lived experience of a pilot, as presented in this paper, provides a useful structure to examine pilot well-being, and to identify and scope potential coping strategies to self-manage health and well-being issues associated with the job of being a pilot.

Examining the needs of persons experiencing homelessness: Bringing the voice of lived experience to policy priorities

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Elise Smith ◽  
Piper Moore ◽  
Sarah Canham
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Salt Lake ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Health And Social Services ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Services And Supports

Policy related to homelessness varies across federal, state, and local levels influencing access to health and social services among persons experiencing homelessness. With a diversity of community stakeholders comes a diversity of ideas about which health and social services to provide and prioritize. Despite the unique insights PEH are able to offer on their own situations, their voices often remain excluded from research and policy. The aim of the current study was to identify the basic needs and health and social service priorities of PEH, to incorporate these voices into policy decisions and prioritization. Fifteen participants age 18 and older who had any experience of homelessness in Salt Lake Countyparticipated in in-depth qualitative interviews between February and March 2020. Open-ended questions enabled the interviews to naturally progress and focus on what was most relevant to participants and their experience. Data were categorized into the services and supports identified as the most needed by PEH and to help lift people out of homelessness: 1) Housing and shelter, 2) Income and employment, 3) Transportation, 4) Food, 5) Physical and mental health services, and 6) Social support. We describe the needs, challenges, and solutions as identified and narrated by study participants. Findings offer critical insight into how the homelessness crisis should be approached by policymakers as the ways in which PEH understand and utilize the system of available resources and supports must align with their abilities and realities. Without these in-depth discussions with PEH about how they understand and meet their basic needs, there will be ongoing gaps in service delivery and mismatches in the attempts made to serve this population.

Socially constructing safety

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 1259-1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Turner ◽  
Garry C. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Organizational Conditions ◽  
Cultural Considerations ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Social Scientific

Social scientific perspectives on occupational safety largely characterize it as a disembodied, tangible, and easily quantifiable phenomenon. Recent research efforts have focused on exploring organizational conditions that predict occupational safety outcomes, resulting in top-down, often de-contextualized prescriptions about how to control safety in the workplace (e.g. ‘management should promote a culture of safety’). There is growing interest in how social processes of organizing, wider socio-cultural considerations, and the situated production of safety can contribute to the appreciation of the ‘lived experience’ of life and death at work. This Special Issue focuses on the socially constructed nature of occupational safety and the insight it provides in understanding broader social and organizational processes. In this article, we first describe how various social scientific disciplines share an interest in occupational safety and organizational behavior, yet rarely speak to another. We provide an overview of the five articles that comprise the Special Issue, and briefly highlight some ways forward for studying safety in organizations.

Why literature students should practise life writing

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Cardell ◽  
Kate Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Creative Space ◽  
Writing Practice

This article considers our experiences teaching a hybrid literature/creative writing subject called “Life Writing.” We consider the value of literature students engaging in creative writing practice—in this instance, the nonfiction subgenre of life writing—as part of their critical literary studies. We argue that in practicing life writing, our literature students are exposed to and gain wider perspective on the practical, critical, creative, and ethical issues that arise from working with literary texts. Such an approach is not with risk. As we discuss in this article, life writing texts can often narrate difficult or traumatic material. However, we want to show how life writing, with its particular focus on actual lives and lived experience, creates a particularly conducive ethical, intellectual, and creative space for learning about and practicing writing.

Proactive and reactive responses to pregnancies resulting from sexual exploitation and abuse: an ecological model based on Haitian survivors’ experiences

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luissa Vahedi ◽  
Sabine Lee ◽  
Susan A. Bartels
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Child Support ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Women And Girls

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the lived experience of seeking justice and reparations related to conceiving a peacekeeper-fathered child. Design/methodology/approach Based on 18 semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted across Haiti in 2017, the authors mapped the experiences of Haitian mothers of peacekeeper-fathered children onto the ecological framework, proposing prevention/response strategies at the micro, meso and macro levels. Findings The findings mainly focus on reporting and access to support. Reporting was sometimes discouraged by the peacekeeper fathers due to the fear of being reprimanded. Among women who did report, some were told that nothing could be done, as the peacekeeper returned to his home country. Disclosure fatigue was common among participants who formally reported their pregnancies/peacekeeper-fathered children, particularly when promises of employment or child support failed to materialize. Overall, there was widespread distrust and disillusionment with the UN’s reporting and support system. Originality/value To improve the UN’s sexual abuse and exploitation prevention/response system at the micro level, the authors propose addressing personal knowledge/attitudes/beliefs through scenario-based and contextually relevant peacekeeper training and addressing the sexual/reproductive health needs of women and girls in proximity to peacekeeping bases. At the meso level, the UN should improve trust in reporting. Efforts to do so should include mandatory third-party deoxyribonucleic acid testing and banking, streamlined reporting mechanisms and removing the practice of automatically repatriating implicated peacekeepers. At the macro level, the authors recommend investments to improve educational and economic opportunities for women and girls, as well as revamping policies that contribute to impunity and absolve peacekeepers and troop-contributing countries of their responsibilities to provide child support.

scholarly journals Does the Olympic Agenda 2020 Have the Power to Create a New Olympic Heritage? An Analysis for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Bid

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Schnitzer ◽  
Lukas Haizinger
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Feasibility Studies ◽  
International Olympic Committee ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
The Future ◽  
Winter Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) lacks candidates willing to host the Olympic Games (OG) and has reacted to this situation by introducing the Olympic Agenda 2020 (OA)—a reform process making the OG more attractive for potential hosts. This study analyzes whether the OA plays a crucial role for the future of the OG. We, therefore, examined the official IOC documents and feasibility studies of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games (WOG) bidders and conducted qualitative interviews with experts in the field (n = 15). The results reveal that the 2026 WOG hosts plan to reduce the budgets for the organization and the infrastructure costs in the host regions. As a consequence, the number and nature of the sites and venues as well as the distances between them will increase. This means that the future Olympic heritage (OH) may lay less in iconic buildings but rather focus on the attempt to fulfil the city’s long-term strategies. Our analyses extend the literature by: (1) analysing the OA in view of future OG, (2) comparing experiences from past OG with those of current bidders, (3) integrating expert knowledge thanks to qualitative interviews and, finally, (4) considering new heritage concepts.

scholarly journals Disaster linguicism: Linguistic minorities in disasters

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinya Uekusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Language Barriers ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Linguistic Minorities ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Linguistic Minority ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Multiple Levels

AbstractLanguage is a means of communication but it functions as much more than this in social life. In emergencies and disasters, it can also be a matter of life and death. Language barriers and effective communication in disaster contexts (i.e. distributing critical disaster information and warnings) are the central concern in current disaster research, practice, and policy. However, based on the data drawn from qualitative interviews with linguistic minority immigrants and refugees in Canterbury, New Zealand and Miyagi, Japan, I argue that linguistic minorities confront unique disaster vulnerability partly due to linguicism—language-based discrimination at multiple levels. As linguicism is often compounded by racism, it is not properly addressed and analyzed, using the framework of language ideology and power. This article therefore introduces the concept of disaster linguicism, employing Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, to explore linguistic minorities’ complex disaster experiences in the 2010–2011 Canterbury and Tohoku disasters. (Disaster linguicism, language barriers, language ideologies)*

Managing liminality: professional care during organizational change

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Mary Willis ◽  
Deidre D. Morgan ◽  
Kate Sweet
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Occupational Therapists ◽  
Theoretical Construct ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Provide Quality Care ◽  
Dying At Home ◽  
Ritual Process

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the way in which the theoretical construct of liminality contributes to understanding the process of dying of cancer from the perspective of patients, carers and professionals in a state-run organization undergoing privatization.Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews were held with 13 patients and their carers and two focus groups with eight physiotherapists and occupational therapists. Data were analysed from the perspective of liminality for all three actors: patients, carers and health professionals.FindingsThe theoretical construct of liminality was useful for understanding the lived experience of patients and their carers. However, a major finding of this study reveals that health professionals operated in a dual space as both managers of the ritual process and individuals undergoing a liminal journey as their organization underwent transformation or restructure. Clients and carers had little knowledge of these tensions.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited by the fact that the interviews did not directly ask questions about the restructure of the organization.Social implicationsIt would appear that professionals provide quality care despite their own struggles in moving from one organizational form to anotherOriginality/valueFew studies have explored the liminal rituals of dying at home that outline how professionals, as managers of the process, deal with their own liminal issues.

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