Abstract
The French classical sociologist, Émile Durkheim, in his ground-breaking research Le Suicide (1897/2002) drew our attention to the role of socio-cultural perspectives to meaningfully understand the study of suicide. Since then, there has been a growing scholarly interest to tap the diverse association between suicide and culture. The case for Bangladesh, however, proves otherwise. This chapter tries to extricate the cultural perspective of suicide in Bangladesh. Drawing predominantly on the existing literature, it attempts to synthesise the prevailing manifestations of the cultural elements affecting suicide and captures the deep relationships between the cultural indexes (e.g., religion, gender, legal status, methods, demographic characteristics, intervention, and research) and suicide. Unfortunately, as a country, Bangladesh has not been able to develop a positive culture of help-seeking in the event of suicidality due to the strong sense of collective stigma and shame. Considering the grievous situation of suicide, Bangladesh must approach to adopt culturally sensitive interventions to appropriately address the problem.
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Khan, A.R. (2023). Cultural Perspectives of Suicide in Bangladesh. In: Arafat, S.M.Y., Khan, M.M. (eds) Suicide in Bangladesh. New Perspectives in Behavioral & Health Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0289-7_4
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