Work Package 3: Disrupting suicide? The role of activism in creating liveable lives
WP3 will address individual and collective activism, as well as public campaigns led by established groups that seek to ‘make change’ relating to suicidality and ‘liveability’. Activism can play a vital role in shaping or challenging responses to suicide yet is under-examined and often overlooked in suicide prevention discourse. WP3 will look at the different ways that activists contribute to/contest understandings of suicide mitigation and/or prevention. It will seek to understand and interrogate socio-political implications of claims about suicide made by activists and campaigners, as well as examining different forms of activism in contexts of life/death.
WP3 Research Questions are:
- How do activists make sense of suicide and engage it in their work?
- How do activists understand their work in relation to notions of liveability and unliveability?
- How do activists contest and/or reproduce hierarchies of liveability?
WP3 Activities
Campaign analysis: Researchers will undertake desk-based analysis of campaign materials from 20 UK-based groups who are organising or campaigning around suicide prevention and/or liveability.
Online interviews: Researchers will undertake 50 interviews and 30 follow up interviews with UK and international activists exploring understandings of suicide and liveability.
Co-produced arts-based projects: Researchers will co-produce 3-4 arts-based projects in collaboration with activists to further inquire into and challenge hierarchies of liveability. This might also involve collaborations with WP1 Lived Experience researchers.
