The Tyranny of Numbers an analysis of suicide and suicidal ideation in Malta

Malta’s suicide rate has remained somewhat constant over the past seven decades, since records properly began. However, public discourse around suicide and suicidal ideation has remained somewhat absent, partly due to an inconsistency in the recording of suicide events, a reticence on the part of practitioners and media to discuss the issue in public forums, and a cultural context that emphasises shame.

Drawing from interviews with practitioners providing support services for families affected by suicide, interviews with friends and family of individuals who have died by suicide, as well as sociological, medical, epidemiological, and anthropological secondary sources, I argue that there are three ways of reading Malta’s suicide rate that attempt to frame the relationship between suicide and society. This paper attempts, in so doing, to provide a platform for an analysis and broader discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation in the Maltese context.

Speaker Bio:
Maurice Said completed his PhD is Socio-cultural Anthropology at the University of Durham (2015), where he conducted fieldwork on the longer term impacts of post-tsunami recovery and development in coastal villages in southern Sri Lanka.

His areas of research and teaching include international development and humanitarian action, political factionalism, post-disaster recovery, the social analysis of complex emergencies, kinship, suicide and self-harm.