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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Critical Suicidology

Transforming Suicide Research and Prevention for the 21st Century

Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Critical Suicidology

Transforming Suicide Research and Prevention for the 21st Century

In Critical Suicidology, a team of international scholars, practitioners, and people directly affected by suicide argue that the field of suicidology has become too focused on the biomedical paradigm: a model that pathologizes distress and obscures the social, political, and historical contexts that contribute to human suffering. The authors take a critical look at existing research, introduce the perspectives of those who have direct personal knowledge of suicide and suicidal behaviour, and propose alternative approaches that are creative and culturally sensitive. In the right hands, this book could save lives.

298 pages | © 2016


Table of Contents

Introduction: Rethinking Suicide / Jennifer White, Ian Marsh, Michael J. Kral, and Jonathan Morris

Part 1: Critiquing Suicidology: Constructions of Suicide and Practices of Prevention

1 Critiquing Contemporary Suicidology / Ian Marsh

2 A Critical Look at the Current Suicide Research / Heidi Hjelmeland

3 Exploring Possibilities for Indigenous Suicide Prevention: Responding to Cultural Understandings and Practices / Lisa M. Wexler and Joseph P. Gone

4 Risky Bodies: Making Suicide Knowable among Youth / Jonathan Morris

5 Speaking of Suicide as a Gendered Problematic: Suicide Attempts and Recovery within Women’s Narratives of Depression / Simone Fullagar and Wendy O’Brien

Part 2: Insider Perspectives

6 “Being More Than Just Your Final Act”: Elevating the Multiple Storylines of Suicide with Narrative Practices / Marnie Sather and David Newman

7 When Despair and Hope Meet the Stigma of “Manipulation” and “Ambivalence” / Yvonne Bergmans, Andrea Rowe, Michael Dineen, and Denise Johnson

8 No Regrets / Andrea Rowe

Part 3: Creating Alternatives: Re-envisioning Suicide and Prevention

9 Hate Kills: A Social Justice Response to “Suicide” / Vikki Reynolds

10 Queer Youth Suicide: Discourses of Difference, Framing Suicidality, and the Regimentation of Identity / Rob Cover

11 Understanding the Unfathomable in Suicide: Poetry, Absence, and the Corporeal Body / Katrina Jaworski and Daniel Scott

12 Indigenous Best Practices: Community-Based Suicide Prevention in Nunavut, Canada / Michael J. Kral and Lori Idlout

13 Reimagining Youth Suicide Prevention / Jennifer White

Index

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