Suicidism: A new theoretical framework to conceptualize suicide from an anti-oppressive perspective

Abstract

Anchored in queer and crip perspectives, this essay proposes the neologism "suicidism" as a new theoretical framework to conceptualize the oppressive system in which suicidal people experience forms of injustice and violence. The thesis proposed here is that suicidal people suffer both individually and collectively from suicidist violence, an oppression that remains unproblematized in all current interpretations of suicide, including those taken up by anti-oppressive scholars and activists. I pursue three interrelated objectives: 1) interrogate dominant ideas and perspectives on suicidality; 2) make visible and denounce the power relations between suicidal and non-suicidal people; 3) enrich intersectional analyses by naming and problematizing an oppression that has been neglected. In sum, this essay proposes to analyze suicidality by asking the following epistemological questions: What and who is missing from current conceptualizations of suicide? What can we learn from these absences? How might new understandings of suicide, from queer and crip perspectives, help anti-oppressive scholars and activists avoid reproducing forms of oppression toward suicidal people? This essay is divided into two parts. The first part reviews some of the predominant models of suicide to illustrate how they all arrive at the same conclusion—that suicide is never an option—and how this results in a silencing of suicidal subjects. In so doing, I also demonstrate how suicidism is intertwined in forms of ableism/sanism. I conclude this first part by mobilizing the notion of epistemic injustice to theorize both the testimonial and hermeneutical injustices experienced by suicidal subjects. In the second part, I explore additional interpretations of suicide that contrast with the dominant "negative" conceptualizations that seek to prevent it in all circumstances. I demonstrate how even "positive" perspectives of suicidality (e.g. the libertarian position) are founded in forms of ableism/sanism, and that even though they may critique the marginalization of suicidal subjects, they don't conceptualize their oppression as systemic, nor address it from an anti-oppressive perspective. Critiquing the "positive" conceptualizations of suicide allows me to delineate an alternative conceptualization of suicide rooted in queer and crip perspectives. Mobilizing a queer perspective to study suicide doesn't mean offering only analyses that take queer theories as a starting point or queer communities as the objects of the study. The intention is rather to queer suicide in a more holistic sense, that is, by applying queering and cripping methods, theories, epistemologies and prevention strategies to the topic of suicidality. Based on a harm-reduction and a non-coercive suicide approach, I suggest that assisted suicide should be a possibility for suicidal people, a position that relies on an ethics of living and a responsibility toward suicidal people.

Representing suicide: Giving voice to a desire to die?

“…What is clear, however, is that almost all such discussions inevitably take place against the backdrop of the dominant prevention narrative outlined by Tack (2019), and in relation to what Baril (2018Baril ( , 2020 characterises as 'compulsory liveness' -'the injunction to live and to futurity' -which 'makes the desire/need for death of some people abnormal, unconceivable and unintelligible, like suicidal subjects themselves' (Baril, 2020).…”

“…The relationship between 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' or prevention stances can seem adversarial and oppositional, and as researchers we have often taken the side of 'life', 'futurity' and prevention without reflecting too deeply on some of the ethical complexities and possible unintended consequences of so doing. Recent research into how railway suicide is constructed in online spaces has given us experience of some of the difficulties and tensions involved in representing online, 'pro-choice' spaces, particularly in relation to the compulsory prevention and 'liveness' imperatives identified by Tack (2019) and Baril (2020). We will briefly outline this research and describe our efforts to engage with some of the ethical issues involved in the following sections.…”

“…Alongside such considerations, it is also important to acknowledge that prevention approaches that rest on notions of irrationality and pathology as explanations for suicide often seem to fail to meet the needs of many people in crisis and distress, or those who live with chronic suicidality (Delano, 2013;Webb, 2010). For Baril (2020), a solution of sorts, and a kind of bridge between prevention and acceptance or validation of a desire to die, is 'suicide-affirmative' healthcare. Here, a non-coercive approach is advocated, one that, There is much to admire in Baril's (2020) formulation, such as the foregrounding of the wishes, needs and expertise of suicidal people in any decision-making process and the acknowledgement of the necessity of first creating 'safer spaces' within which deliberations and 'critical reflection' can occur, ones that, 'must be as free as possible from forms of judgment, stigmatization, paternalism and oppression and must foster a welcoming environment so that suicidal people can freely express their lived experiences, thoughts and demands without fear of reprisals and negative consequences'.…”

“…For Baril (2020), a solution of sorts, and a kind of bridge between prevention and acceptance or validation of a desire to die, is 'suicide-affirmative' healthcare. Here, a non-coercive approach is advocated, one that, There is much to admire in Baril's (2020) formulation, such as the foregrounding of the wishes, needs and expertise of suicidal people in any decision-making process and the acknowledgement of the necessity of first creating 'safer spaces' within which deliberations and 'critical reflection' can occur, ones that, 'must be as free as possible from forms of judgment, stigmatization, paternalism and oppression and must foster a welcoming environment so that suicidal people can freely express their lived experiences, thoughts and demands without fear of reprisals and negative consequences'. Interestingly, the online spaces we encountered in our research often seemed to fulfil these criteria, but perhaps the freedoms offered by such places also need to be weighed against an acknowledgement that deaths by suicide can follow.…”

“… 1 See also the work of Baril (2017, 2018, 2020), who argues that the ‘injunction to live’ (Baril, 2017: 201) is at the heart of all prevention efforts. …”