Suicide in Sri Lanka

With a focus on Sri Lanka, a country that for several decades has reported ‘epidemic’ levels of suicidal behaviour, this book develops a unique perspective, linking the causes and meanings of suicidal practices to social processes across moments, lifetimes, and history. Extending anthropological approaches to practice, learning, and agency, the author draws from long-term fieldwork in a Sinhala Buddhist community to develop an ethnographic theory of suicide that foregrounds local knowledge and sets out a charter for prevention.