This chapter reflects on why suicide has become such a pervasive phenomenon in Sri Lankan society by engaging with the extensive scholarly literature that exists on this subject. Rather than trying to provide some overarching, mono-causal explanation, it seeks to illuminate the complexity of the issue and the varied and nuanced ways in which we might try to apprehend it, be it in conjunction with homicide or political conflict, social change or sexual anomie, restraint or collectivism. While problematising our re-course to the ‘work of culture’ and reading statistics against the grain, this chapter also highlights gendered dimensions and broader conceptual strands where we may not have thought to seek them.
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