The Structural Violence of Indigenous Suicide Prevention Policies in Canada

Abstract

Indigenous peoples in Canada suffer from very high suicide rates of which there are various state-created programmes and efforts to combat. However, the variety of these programmes may be limited in their conceptions of Indigenous suicide. I predicted that by analysing existing suicide prevention policies and frameworks, I would find that they systematically place Indigenous peoples in vulnerable positions through the enforcement of Western ideals of health and suicide, thus providing inadequate support towards preventing suicide. This would constitute structural violence. I used a content analysis to analyse and code themes in suicide prevention policies in Canada. I found that suicide prevention policies perpetuate structural violence as these policies overwhelmingly conceive suicide as an outcome of poor mental health, based on colonial knowledge, which is economically self-serving to the state.