Moving Toward a Critical Suicidology
Abstract
Suicidology is a social practice that sees itself as a science. Most of the research
being done in suicidology draws from the positivist tradition. A key claim of the field
is that over 90% of suicides have had a mental disorder. A new intellectual space
is starting to emerge called critical suicidology. It highlights the limits of mainstream
approaches to understanding and responding to suicide. Critical suicidology is
committed to incorporating more contextualized poetic, subjective, historical, ecological,
social justice oriented, and political perspectives. Suicide and culture is of particular
interest. We believe that suicidology has grown to the point where it can welcome new
and diverse, increasingly critical, perspectives, opening new doors of inquiry.