Katrina Jaworski

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.

This is part 2 of 6 of the dossier What do we talk about when we talk about queer death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology, gender studies, and LGBT+ studies and tackle questions such as: how can queer death studies problematise heteronormative/cisnormative constructions of dying, death, and mourning? How can queer death studies approach the post-mortem manipulation of transgender identities? How can this discipline change the current cultural perception of the link between queerness and suicide? The present article includes the following contributions: – Alasuutari, V., Queering the heteronormative and cisnormative lifeworld of death; – Whitestone S., Queering as identity preservation: transgender identity after death; – Goret Hansen L., When i talk about queer death, I talk about trans-necropolitics and suicide prevention; – Jaworski K., Notes towards rethinking the agency of queer youth suicide; – Doletskaya O., Queer death and victimhood in Russia: ‘westernised queer activism’; – Zubillaga-Pow J., Lesbian Liebestod: sapphic suicide in chinese society.

In conceptualizing vulnerability, it is common for researchers to assume that some participants are more vulnerable on the basis of their membership of a particular group or because they exhibit particular characteristics. Older people are often viewed as inherently more vulnerable by ethics committees and the ethical guidelines committees construct. Because age alone does not confer or cause vulnerability, risk of harm to older research participants is not purely associated with their intrinsic connection to a vulnerable group, and classifying older research participants as vulnerable may not necessarily protect them from harm. Drawing on the preliminary findings of a qualitative study of older people who had survived a suicide attempt, we reflect on how the specific context of our study had the potential of framing older people as vulnerable, and describe ways in which these were managed and resolved. Specifically, we discuss potential for harm through the ethical principles of coercion and distress.