Citation

Straight B, Pike IL, Hilton C, Oesterle M. Cult. Med. Psychiatry 2014; 39(3): 557-578.

Affiliation

Department of Anthropology, Western Michigan University, 1020 Moore Hall, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA, Bilinda.Straight@wmich.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11013-014-9417-4

PMID

25381581

Abstract

We examine cultural understandings and practices surrounding suicide in Pokot, Samburu, and Turkana pastoralists in north-central Kenya-three geographically overlapping and mutually interacting pastoralist communities. We collected our data in the context of a study of poverty, violence, and distress. In all three communities, stigma associated with suicide circumscribed individual responses to the World Health Organization's Self-Report Questionnaire, which led to an ethnographic sub-study of suicide building upon our long-standing research in East Africa on distress, violence, and death. As is true for most of sub-Saharan Africa, reliable statistical data are non-existent for these communities. Thus, we deliberately avoid making assertions about generalizable statistical trends. Rather, we take the position that ethnographically nuanced studies like the one we offer here provide a necessary basis for the respectful collection of accurate quantitative data on this important and troubling practice. Moreover, our central point in this paper is that positive transformational work relating to suicide is most likely when researcher outsiders practice 'deep engagement' while respectfully restricting their role to (1) iterative, community-driven approaches that contextualize suicide; and (2) sharing contextualized analyses with other practitioners. We contend that situating suicide within a broader cultural framework that includes attitudes and practices surrounding other forms of death is essential to both aspects of anthropological-outsiders' role.

Language: en