Suicide and the 'Poison Complex': Toxic Relationalities, Child Development, and the Sri Lankan Self-Harm Epidemic

Widger, Tom

doi:10.1080/01459740.2015.1012616

Suicide and the 'Poison Complex': Toxic Relationalities, Child Development, and the Sri Lankan Self-Harm Epidemic

Widger, Tom

Authors

Dr Thomas Widger tom.widger@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Abstract

Suicide prevention efforts in Asia have increasingly turned to ‘quick win’ means restriction, while more complicated cognitive restriction and psychosocial programmes are limited. This paper argues the development of cognitive restriction programmes requires greater consideration of suicide methods as social practices, and of how suicide cognitive schemata form. To illustrate this, the paper contributes an ethnographically grounded study of how self-poisoning becomes cognitively available in Sri Lanka. I argue the overwhelming preference for poison as a method of self-harm in the country is not simply reflective of its widespread availability, but rather how cognitive schemata of poison – a ‘poison complex’ – develops from early childhood and is a precondition for suicide schemata. Limiting cognitive availability thus requires an entirely novel approach to suicide prevention that draws back from its immediate object (methods and causes of self-harm) to engage the wider poison complex of which suicide is just one aspect.

Citation

Widger, T. (2015). Suicide and the 'Poison Complex': Toxic Relationalities, Child Development, and the Sri Lankan Self-Harm Epidemic. Medical Anthropology, 34(6), 501-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1012616

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 24, 2014
Online Publication Date	Feb 4, 2015
Publication Date	Nov 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Feb 27, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Aug 4, 2016
Journal	Medical Anthropology
Print ISSN	0145-9740
Electronic ISSN	1545-5882
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	34
Issue	6
Pages	501-516
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1012616
Keywords	Cognition, Methods, Poison, Schemata, Suicide.

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Medical Anthropology on 04/02/2015, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01459740.2015.1012616.