Suicide, society and crisis     

This project will investigate the links between suicide and political and social crisis. We will investigate whether suicide rates increase in times of socio-political crisis and how suicide epidemics are understood as symptoms of instability.

These questions will be brought to bear on a case study of the suicide epidemic triggered by the fear of war in 1938-9 during the Munich Crisis. Together with key collaborators in the medical humanities and the cross-disciplinary field of suicidology, we will test psychological, psychiatric, sociological and historical theories about how internalisation of dramatic socio-political change affects incidents, methods and attitudes towards suicide. 

Our preliminary findings will offer historical insight into recent suicide epidemics connected to post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans of the Iraq wars, the increase in suicides during the 2008 financial crisis, mental health in refugee communities, and the psychological fallout of Brexit.