Introduction
The task for sociologists attempting to understand
suicide – one of the most individual of acts – is to
link ‘private troubles’ (Mills, 1959) with ‘big
structures’ and ‘large social processes’ (Tilly, 1984),
and to find ways of doing so that are historically and
culturally sensitive.
This report takes as its focus not the act of suicide
itself – the ultimate manifestation of ‘private
trouble’ – but the broader emotional culture within
which that act takes place, and the ways in which
that may (and may not) be changing. It is not directly
concerned with the aetiology of suicide among
middle-aged men in low socio-economic groups – in
other words, with tracking backwards from that act
to determine individual causes – but with a mapping
of the terrain of men’s emotional lives in mid-life in
order to illuminate the context within which such
acts occur.
To that end, the first part of this paper identifies
three overlapping ways of thinking about mid-life –
as age/life stage, as generational position and as
generational identity/cohort – and suggests that
each needs to be seen as potentially historically
specific.