interpretivist

• can & should sociology be science?


  no
• why can't we study & predict patterns of behaviour?


  -humans have agency

  -choose how to act & react
• what do they believe it's more interesting to study?

  -individuals subjective opinions & interpretations

  > there's no social facts to study

  > only social constructions
• verstehen


  putting yourself in someone else's shoes

  > performed by interpretivists
• methods used


  -unstructured interviews

  -participant observations

  -documents > diary, photographs, letters (personal)
• Douglas' view on suicide 


  -suicide is an individual act with individual meanings

  > to understand we need to uncover these meanings
• Douglas' view on official statistics


  -OS can't help & can't be trusted

  -they're socially constructed and don't reflect real suicide rates

  -we must use qualitative data from case studies instead

  > personal documents

  > interview people who attempted suicide

  > interview friends / relatives
• affect of official statistics on suicide data


  -only tell us which deaths are labelled as suicide

  -label depends on interactions that take place between different social actors after death

  > coroner

  > relatives

  > doctors

  > friends