ARCUS | Arctic Research Consortium of the United States

7th Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence


Submitted by   Andrew Hund
Authors  
Category   Social Science
Title   Inuit Suicides: A Contextual Analysis
Affiliation   Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Oh, USA

Abstract

This paper critically examines the macro, meso, and micro level theoretical explanations of suicide, with the context of the family structure. A particular emphasis is placed on the linkage of the macro economic and political social structures to the trigger events (i.e., interpersonal conflict, substance abuse, depression, etc), violence (i.e., physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and/or socio-cultural), and the destruction of the traditional cultural socialization. This cultural disequilibrium is the distal factor or root cause of the elevated Inuit suicides and thus self-inflicted genocide.