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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Peter Steggals, Dr Stephanie Lawler, Dr Ruth GrahamORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Sociological interest in nonsuicidal self-injury is over 20 years old, and the last decade shows a marked increase in journal articles and research monographs. Here, we survey and critically evaluate this growing sociology of self-injury, providing a short history of its development, and describing the focus of four contrasting approaches used in exploring a sociology of such a private practice: institutional interactions; processes of social construal and construction; the social in the lived experience of subjects; and the role of social relations and communication. We argue that these approaches in the sociology of self-injury more generally represent four broader social theoretical perspectives on how the personal is always-already social. Understanding this connection between the empirical search for the social in self-injury, and theoretical conceptualizations of the social in the personal, is key to opening up the future of the sociology of self-injury, and appreciating what it has to offer sociology more generally. The more we understand what is social in self-injury, the more we will understand how the personal is always-already social; and the greater the theoretical investment in our methodological apparatus, the more we will be able to detect and comprehend the social dimension of this intensely personal practice.
Author(s): Steggals P, Lawler S, Graham R
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Sociology Compass
Year: 2022
Volume: 16
Issue: 5
Print publication date: 01/05/2022
Online publication date: 17/02/2022
Acceptance date: 01/02/2022
Date deposited: 26/02/2025
ISSN (print): 1751-9020
ISSN (electronic): 1751-9020
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12970
DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12970
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