Suicide: The Social Context

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how suicide is imagined to be a transgression of cultural boundaries and the sanctity of life. The paper then questions if there can be a suicide that does not transgress cultural boundaries. The paper also considers how suicide is situated within the cultural definitions and constructions of death that dominate various cultural settings. The paper reviews the relevant literature and concludes that a suicide must always be a transgression of cultural boundaries since it has only as much cultural importance as is granted to the act by the norms and prescriptions of the larger social context.

From the Paper:

"Suicide speaks to the nature of our cultural boundaries and our implicitly agreed upon notions of death and dying. Implicitly, there seems to be a common thread that runs through diverse cultures condemning the practice of suicide. When openly discussed, few non-reflexive cultural texts consider suicide to be a laudable act. There are, of course, exceptions. Kelleher provides Biblical examples of military suicides that are presented in a positive light after the shame of defeat, and all but praises the use of suicide--via hunger strikes--for political purposes (Kelleher 9-11). But outside of fairly narrow exceptions, suicide is imagined to be a transgression of cultural boundaries and the sanctity of life."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Catedra, Maria. This World, Other Worlds. Trans. William Christian. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
• Durkheim, Emile. Suicide (1897, trans. 1962). Routledge, 2006.
• Jamison, Kay Redfield. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. Knopf, 1999.
• Kelleher, Michael J. Suicide and the Irish. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1996.
• Kral, Michael J. "Suicide and the Internalization of Culture: Three Questions." Transcultural Psychiatry 35.2 (June 1998): 221-233.

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