Mors Voluntaria:

Structures and social functions around suicide

Abstract

The present investigation analyzes suicide, the name by which the death that a person gives himself is known, has always been interpreted as an individual act. However, there are sociocultural issues that can define self-destructive action. As a human fact, suicide also has structures and functions that it is impossible to do without and that it is necessary to understand in order to understand the phenomenon itself in a better way. The systematization of information when talking about voluntary mors includes a wide range of data so diverse, but at the same time so enriching, that they are capable of providing a better understanding of suicidal behavior, but even more, of demonstrating that suicide itself is a superstructure. The relevance of the study of suicide for anthropology lies in the fact that it has been abandoned by this science, while this phenomenon is addressed mainly by psychology, psychiatry and sociology. Carrying out an anthropological analysis of voluntary death is very useful to achieve a new and better approach to suicide. Methodologically, the operationalization of categories, concepts and indicators was necessary. An organic and natural review of the information was carried out, creating conceptual, theoretical and analytical frameworks. The fieldwork was focused on obtaining information from two sources: oral (through interviews and life stories); and documentaries (which consisted mainly of posthumous letters).