Public Suicide as a Deed of Optionless Intimacy

Bibliographic Data

ID2481002
AuthorsDušan I Bjelić (0000-0002-8584-9171, University of Southern Maine, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume13
Issue2
Pages161-183
Publication date1990-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/si.1990.13.2.161
OpenAlexW2004923243
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited20

This article offers an ethnomethodological analysis of suicide practices in situ. By analyzing a videotaped record of a public suicide by a government official this article is able to examine the temporal relations between the unfolding suicide act and the situational contingencies arising from its interactional context. In the case examined, the suicide was planned as a ceremony, in part to indicate the official facing corruption charges. A press conference provided the pretext for the suicide ceremony in which the official intended to deliver a prepared speech to accuse his accusers and bid farewell to loved ones before shooting himself. Things turned out differently than he planned, though he did in the end shoot himself. The analysis focuses on how the audience's reaction to the imminent suicide foreclosed the suicide cermony while at the same time pre-emptying the pre-suicide speech deferring the impending suicide

Ceremony · Criminology · Deed · Ethnomethodology · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Pretext · Situational ethics · Social science · Sociology · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Emotions and Moral Behavior · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub