Suicidism: A Theoretical Framework for Conceptualizing Suicide (2023) (original) (raw)

2023, Undoing Suicidism: A Trans, Queer, Crip Approach to Rethinking (Assisted) Suicide

REFERENCE: Baril, A. (2023). Undoing Suicidism: A trans, queer, crip approach to rethinking (assisted) suicide, Foreword by Robert McRuer, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 335 pages. Open access at https://temple.manifoldapp.org/projects/undoing-suicidism ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1: Chapter 1 raises epistemological questions about dominant conceptualizations of suicidality. Proposing the theoretical framework of suicidism that is at the core of this book, this longer chapter is divided into four sections. The first section presents four models of suicidality: medical/psychological, social, public health, and social justice. Despite numerous differences, these models arrive at the same conclusion: Suicide is not a good option for suicidal people (in some of these models, exceptions are made for disabled/sick/ill/old and sometimes Mad people, as I discuss in Chapter 4). As a result, not only do these models fail to recognize the suicidist oppression faced by suicidal people; they also perpetuate it through a suicidist preventionist script. One of the most perverse effects of the preventionist script is the silencing of suicidal people. Indeed, they are encouraged to share their suicidal ideation but are discouraged from pursuing suicide as a valid solution. In other words, suicidal ideation can be explored, but suicide itself remains taboo. In the chapter’s second part, I identify limits to these models—namely, forms of suicidism and sanism. I argue that sanism and suicidism are intertwined, as sanist treatments are frequently forced upon Mad people by using suicidist discourses of protection. In this section, I also present the notions of compulsory aliveness and the injunction to live and to futurity and contend that compulsory aliveness aims to impose a will to live that renders suicidal people’s desire/need for death abnormal and unintelligible. In the third section, I depict alternative conceptualizations of suicidality that consider suicide to be an individual liberty but demonstrate how such conceptualizations are founded on liberal and individualist assumptions. The fourth section mobilizes the notion of epistemic violence—part of the suicidist oppression—to theorize the testimonial and hermeneutical injustices as well as the hermeneutic marginalization and epistemic death experienced by suicidal subjects.