Suicide in Sri Lanka by Tom Widger

Author:Tom Widger [Widger, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317589921
Google: 2athCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-05-15T05:02:43+00:00

Emotional flows of suicide stories told in Madampe

Alongside the everyday conflicts that people report as causes of suicidal practice, there existed a set of folk suicide stories by which people in Madampe sought to make sense of, and lay claim to, the causes and consequences of suicide here. In their narratives of suicidal practice informants often turned to a well-rehearsed triad of phrases, including ‘suffering’ (dukə), ‘frustration’ (asəhane) and ‘anger’ (tarəha), when seeking to explain the emotional states associated with them. This was the case for suicidal people themselves, as well as those who dealt with the aftermath, either within the arena of the village or of courts and clinics. Moreover, the phrases also appeared within more general discussions of suicide, and existed as a means by which suicide threats, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths could be talked about in the abstract.

As a trio of ‘popular’ phrases, then, the terms ‘suffering’, ‘frustration’ and ‘anger’ peppered conversations and at that level they have had very amorphous representations. In some ways they were used interchangeably, as Madampe people knew that by referring to ‘suffering’ one’s interlocutors would fill in the other two by themselves; the same may be said for when one is speaking of ‘frustration’ and ‘anger’. As emotional states, suffering, frustration and anger were said to exist as feelings possible to experience individually, but also oftentimes cumulatively. Conditions giving rise to suffering, if left unaddressed, are said to flow into frustrations of two distinct kinds – ‘mental’ (ma:nəsikə) and ‘sexual’ (lingikə) – which can, if left to ferment and be suddenly provoked, erupt into ‘sudden anger’ (ikmaŋ tarəha). In fact, ‘suffering, frustration and anger’ may be understood as amounting to a total model of mental and physical health in Madampe. As will be seen, certain kinds of problems and misfortunes are assumed to set in motion predictable mental and physical consequences of suffering, frustration and anger along gender and class lines.

The trajectory from suffering to anger is understood as one of flowing from a state of relative mental and physical coolness and individual and social stability to one of extreme heat and individual and social instability (cf. Beck 1969). In Madampe, as indeed across Sri Lanka and South Asia more generally (Daniel 1984; McGilvray 1998; Nichter 1987; Obeyesekere 1984; Osella and Osella 1996; Trawick 1992), excessive heat is associated with temper, violence and impulsivity; coolness with calmness, peacefulness and steadiness. These are also qualities associated with women and the working estate class on the one hand, and men and the middle pura:ṇə class on the other hand. Cool behaviour is marked by quietness, reason and fear of shame: the qualities of ‘good’ pura:ṇə men and women. Hot behaviour is marked by loudness, irrationality, passion and the absence of shame: the qualities of ‘bad’ estate men and women. While by definition all suicidal acts are ‘hot’ to some extent, suffering suicides are considered cooler – and therefore calmer, more peaceful and more rational – than frustration or anger suicides – which in turn are considered more violent, more impulsive and more irrational.

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