The concept of anomie is closely associated with the French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) and is usually translated as ‘normlessness’, or ‘being without norms’. However, this is actually a mistranslation, and can be misleading. The word ‘anomie’ comes from the Greek word anomos, which means ‘without law’. In the original French, Durkheim used the words dérèglement (lack of rules or regulation), and rien ne les règle (nothing regulates or controls them). So what exactly did Durkheim have in mind when he talked about anomie?
The two main works in which Durkheim used the concept are The Division of Labour in Society (1893) and Suicide (1897). These titles give us a clue to the fact that Durkheim saw anomie as operating at both a macro (societal) level and an individual level, though the two are closely connected.
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