Suicides, poisons and the materially possible: The positive ambivalence of means restriction and critical–critical global health

Widger, Tom

doi:10.1177/1359183518799525

Suicides, poisons and the materially possible: The positive ambivalence of means restriction and critical–critical global health

Widger, Tom

Authors

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

Abstract

Developing an object-oriented perspective on suicide, in this article the author challenges critical global health scholarship and sociological theories of ambivalence by showing how a focus on ‘materially possible’ suicide prevention can offer culturally relevant solutions to a suicide epidemic in a resource-poor setting. Taking the example of pesticide regulation in Sri Lanka, he demonstrates why, in theoretical terms, banning toxic pesticides has coherence in a local poison complex that renders suicide available to people as a cultural practice. While writers in the field of critical global health have been suspicious of ‘magic-bullet’ interventions such as means restriction because such policies reportedly overlook the social complexity of problems such as suicide, the author argues that what is materially possible is often of merit because it renders graspable an otherwise deeply contingent and variegated problem. He further argues that critical global health can view the ambivalent costs and benefits of materially possible, magic-bullet interventions as a positive rather than negative offshoot of global health.

Citation

Widger, T. (2018). Suicides, poisons and the materially possible: The positive ambivalence of means restriction and critical–critical global health. Journal of Material Culture, 23(4), 396-412. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183518799525

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 2, 2018
Online Publication Date	Sep 20, 2018
Publication Date	Dec 1, 2018
Deposit Date	Oct 16, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Nov 21, 2018
Journal	Journal of Material Culture
Print ISSN	1359-1835
Electronic ISSN	1460-3586
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	23
Issue	4
Pages	396-412
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183518799525

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