Problematising the Suicides of Older Male Farmers

Subjective, Social and Cultural Considerations

Bibliographic Data

ID4445600
AuthorsBridget Garnham (School of Psychology, Social Work & Social Policy Division of Education, Arts & Social Sciences University of South Australia St Bernards Rd, Magill Adelaide South Australia 5072 Australia, corresponding author), Lindsay Bryant (0000-0001-8247-8718, School of Psychology, Social Work & Social Policy Division of Education, Arts & Social Sciences University of South Australia Adelaide South Australia), Lia Bryant
Year2014
Volume54
Issue2
Pages227-240
Publication date2014-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociologia Ruralis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0199 • E-ISSN: 1467-9523
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soru.12029
OpenAlexW1565462608
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited51

The literature on suicide reveals an academic praxis that largely overlooks the group potentially at highest risk of suicide, namely older male farmers. Within the broader literature on suicide, a small and constrained body of articles has provided empirical evidence and review of the individual risk factors for older male suicides. The rural studies literature on suicide has predominantly focused on the risk factors of suicide for farmers and rural youth and the ways in which masculinities are implicated in suicide. This article engages with these literatures for what they might reveal about the suicides of older male farmers but also critiques their limitations and makes suggestions about potentially revealing avenues for empirical investigation. It argues that the suicides of older male farmers, both real and within discourse, raise complex questions concerning reasons for suicide, embedded within subjective, social and cultural contexts. Examination of cultures of farming masculinity, rural cultures of ageing and the ways in which old age and suicide are problematised may therefore provide critical insights into the suicides of older farming men

Agriculture · Empirical evidence · Empirical research · Environmental health · Geography · Masculinity · Poison control · Political science · Praxis · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Agriculture and Farm Safety · Gender Studies · Medicine · Psychology · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies