The complaint of death

Suicides, ruralities and neoliberal times in South America

Abstract

This article discusses the confluence of three sensitive fields in the global and South American context: the increase in suicide rates in rural areas from the imposition of neoliberal policies. Suicide as a  phenomenon gained visibility in rural populations during the last decades, becoming an agent of subjective and social denunciation that questions senses, power relations and prevailing living conditions. Methodologically, statistical data, theoretical debates and empirical studies, and ethnographic records of Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay and Guyana were used. The aim was to provide multisitued reflexive elements to broaden the understanding of the contemporary existential condition of rural populations that share the particularity of the significant increase in self-inflicted death.