Inequality, distress and harm-reduction: a social justice approach to self-injury

Abstract

In this paper I argue that sociology is intricately related to social justice. To paraphrase Mills (The sociological imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002), by revealing the ways in which experiences which are normatively framed as “private troubles” are in fact “public” or social issues, sociologists expose the structures of power which shape individual lives. These structures are not only evident in easily identifiable material, social and environmental inequalities but also in what appear to be individual “health” experiences such as mental distress and self-injury. I draw on qualitative research to explore a social justice perspective of self-injury via the intersections of social class, gender and sexuality and the oppressions and injustices inherent to them. Next, I turn my attention to social justice responses to self-injury, and I explore the importance of user-led interventions for developing social justice oriented responses to both mental distress and self-injury, and the ways in which these have been marginalised in medical and sociological perspectives. Finally, I argue that with the urgency of social justice interventions never more apparent, sociologists and social researchers should be working as allies with rights movements both within “mental health” and beyond.