Updates to the Abuse Policy

[danahboyd]

The Advisory Board met last month, resulting in decisions about some open issues in the Abuse Policy. The conclusions are posted here. I am happy with the decisions and I hope you will be too

Comments

[nursemette]

I'm curious as to where they are going to look for literature in this field? I would suggest some medical and nursing databases myself.

[danahboyd]

Most of the related work comes from psych, soc, anthro, public health, and social work. The medical/nursing DBs include the psych and public health literature as well as work in the endo end of things. There's universal agreement in the endo literature that self-harm is physically destructive. We're not going to try to challenge that. The questions that we're concerned with are social, psychological, policy, and cultural responses. Does that make sense?

[nursemette]

It does make a lot of sense, and I'm glad to hear that you're taking it seriously. Thank you a lot, I hope you can have a good dialog with all the parts involved and make sure that people with eating disorders and who practice self harm can have a safe place on lj where they can work on empowerment instead of pulling each other down in a negative spiral. Thank you for your response, and good luck! I personally would very much love to see what you find on this subject, and that you can link the references for those who are interested in reading these.

[feministyogini]

Might I also suggest third wave feminist literature?

[ursamajor]

Oh, good, it's reassuring to hear there'll be a rigorous and academic review of this part of the policy. Thanks for letting us know!

[yanatonage]

Thank you.

[kou]

Hi, and thanks for your work on the Advisory Board. I'm glad to hear that it's actually effective.

From what little I've seen, things like these can actually be somewhat controversial within the field itself. If I recall correctly, there was a study about how trauma and toxicology get more reports of suicide by a certain method when it is depicted on television (e.g. suicide by tylenol), but it was disputed whether this affected only those already inclined to self-harm, or whether it actually increased fatalities.

Media depictions of sex and violence tend to get all the press, but I'm sure plenty of students (with nice lab coats and credentials) will be more than willing to share their opinion on pro-ana, etc. With peer-reviewed journals, at least you won't have to watch for industry/lobbyist-funded papers coming out of "institutes" in DC (sometimes called "stink tanks"), but be prepared for an onslaught of conflicting studies. Even from AAP's Pediatrics.

That's research for ya! :O.

[pyrop]

If it was easy, it wouldn't be research.

This is anecdotal, but you might appreciate it anyways. In Japan (the country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world) there has been a rash of suicides by means of chemical gas; people have used household chemicals to generate poison gas, or will use available insect poisons or whatnot. The problem with this is that the chemicals can harm others. One man who mixed cleaning chemicals in his bathroom to generate chlorine gas killed himself and his father when he entered the bathroom to find out that was wrong. Another consumed the fumigant chloropicrin (which was used as a chemical weapon in WWI), and when he vomited in the hospital, 50 people were injured by the fumes of the chemical. (I forget where i read the first, but the second is linked here.)

I know this isn't what you meant by "increased fatalities", but it does demonstrate that this is a pretty woolly subject. What is the right way to quantify self-harm? (That's rhetorical; i don't expect even danahboyd will have an answer when she

[danahboyd]

I should note that while I will examine quantitative studies, I am very much a qualitative scholar. This means that I try to map out topologies of practices and aim for understanding patterns with ecological validity. This also means that I will choose to cover some things and leave other things for future research. Still, the literature review that I will provide will account for both positive and negative studies, examining and interrogating them. I'm fully aware of biases in both researchers and publishers. My goal is to help ground that. As an ethnographer, I try to see things from the POV of the different relevant actors. I also try to keep a reality check on my own biases and make them known and visible. I'm not perfect, but my hope is to get beyond the buzz and hype and really dive deep into the dynamics at play.

[feministyogini]

I look forward to reading your work!