Suicidal journeys: attempted suicide as geographies of intended death

Abstract

In geography, a conversation around suicide survivors and their suicidal journeys has yet to happen. The current prioritisation of suicide as end points marked on maps and patterns of death in space and regions has obscured the lived experience of adults who attempt suicide and do not die. In an effort to reduce this invisibility, evidence derived from in-depth interviews with adults (18 years and over reported as missing) who freely delivered narratives of their attempts is employed to understand the complex spatiality of suicide in retrospect. Situating suicide survivors as knowledgeable about their feelings, beliefs and experiences, the paper encounters testimonies of intended death via a focus on spatialised journeys: physical routes, pathways and places of attempted suicide. Discussing these particular journeys as socio-spatial process represents the potential for geographical scholars to rework geographies of dying and (attempted) death as an active practice.