“Boys don’t cry?” Critical phenomenology, self-harm and suicide

In this article I argue that critical phenomenology, informed by critical race and intersectional scholarship, offers a useful lens through which to consider suicide and self-harm among men. To illustrate this, I draw on a narrative informed analysis of the accounts of 10 men who had experienced self-harm, read through Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology. Two themes are emphasised : gendered, raced, classed bodies that are (unexpectedly) stopped; and bodies that, despite being stopped, still “do” – enacting violence and control against self and other. Critical phenomenology can support much needed examination of the complex ways in which socioeconomic class, race, gender and age structure experiences of distress among different social groups. This approach enables a simultaneous examination of the way that privilege and oppression may shape both the experience of distress, and the way it is responded to – including through violence against the self, and against others.