The Gender of Suicide : Knowledge Production, Theory and Suicidology Katrina Jaworski

1. The construction of knowledge of suicide and gender in suicidology -- 2. Performative knowledge : re-reading gender in suicide -- 3. Durkheim's social recognition of gender in suicide -- 4. Fact-finding exercises : the coroner, suicide and gender -- 5. What it means to see : reading gender in medical examinations of suicide -- 6. The visibility of difference : gender and suicide in psy-knowledge -- 7. Intriguing events, spectacular deaths.

"Drawing on diverse theoretical and textual sources, The Gender of Suicide presents a critical study of the ways in which contemporary society understands suicide, exploring suicide across a range of key expert bodies of knowledge. With attention to Durkheim's founding study of suicide, as well as discourses within sociology, law, medicine, psy-knowledge and newsprint media, this book demonstrates that suicide cannot be understood without understanding how gender shapes it, and without giving explicit attention to the manner in which prevailing claims privilege some interpretations and experiences of suicide above others. Revealing the masculine and masculinist terms in which our current knowledge of suicide is constructed, The Gender of Suicide, explores the relationship between our grasp of suicide and problematic ideas connected to the body, agency, violence, race and sexuality. As such, it will appeal to sociologists and social theorists, as well as scholars of cultural studies, philosophy, law and psychology."--Publisher's website.