Self-injury in social context: an emerging sociology
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Self‑injury in social context: an emerging sociology Peter Steggals1 · Ruth Graham1 · Steph Lawler2 Published online: 6 August 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020 What is being carved in human flesh is an image of society - Mary Douglas Purity and Danger (1966, p. 116)
The last ten years have seen a remarkable increase in sociological interest in nonsuicidal self-injury (more commonly known as self-harm),1 which is to say acts, normally repeated and habitual, that in some way cause ‘direct harm to the body, but... where the focus and purpose of the[se] act[s] is this harm itself and not some other goal such as decorative body modification or suicide’ (Steggals 2015, p. 9). Taking sociology research monographs as a rough indicator: the decade started with the very first to be published that was exclusively dedicated to self-injury,2 Patricia and Peter Adler’s The Tender Cut (2011). This was followed a year later by Theresa McShane’s Blades, Blood and Bandages (2012) and then by Peter Steggals’ Making Sense of Self-Harm (2015), Amy Chandler’s Self-Injury, Society and Medicine (2016), Elizabeth McDermott and Katrina Roen’s Queer Youth, Suicide and SelfHarm (2016), and finally Baptiste Brossard’s Why Do We Hurt Ourselves? (2018). Over the same period, Kay Inckle followed up her 2007 book on self-mutilation and body modification, Writing on the Body?, with two books that take a sociologically informed perspective on self-injury: Flesh Wounds? (2010) and Safe With SelfInjury (2017). And alongside these titles we might also mention the works of social and medical history, like Chris Millard’s A History of Self-Harm in Britain (2013) and Sarah Chaney’s Psyche on the Skin (2017). There are several good reasons for this increased interest, not least of which is the fact that self-injury is a serious topic representing a significant public health 1 While self-injury is often referred to as self-harm in public discourse, the term has a more general meaning in medical discourse, referring to (following the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence) ‘acts of intentional self-poisoning or self-injury irrespective of type of motivation’ (2011, p. 5). The medical definition of self-harm then includes but is not limited to non-suicidal self-injury. 2 Liz Frost’s important monograph Young Women and the Body was published in 2001, but dealt with eating disorders as well as self-injury.
* Peter Steggals [email protected] 1
Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
2
Department of Sociology, University of York, Wentworth College, York, UK
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issue. For example, a recent repeated cross-sectional study found that the prevalence of self-injury has risen steeply in England, with lifetime prevalence rates increasing from 2.4% of the population in 2000 to 6.4% in 2014 (McManus et al. 2019). Meanwhile, analysis of English primary care data showed that, between 2011 and 2014, the incidence of the broader medical category of ‘self-harm’ (which includes, but is not limi
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