Paarl, a large South African town, has experienced a dramatic increase in suicide among young, professional Coloured men during the period 1990 to 2000. Interviews were conducted with surviving family members and friends, and subjected to a qualitative, interpretative analysis. Theoretically and methodologically, cultural psychology is presented as a critical alternative to mainstream academic literature on suicide within psychology and sociology. Hence, the suicides of the young men are read as a cultural phenomenon within a particular post-Apartheid context. Cultural certitude and identity are presented as organising dialectic and phenomenological hermeneutic.
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