Critiquing contemporary suicidology

How can we best understand what suicide and suicide prevention are now? By this I mean, how can we think about the ways we have come to conceptualize suicide, the assumptions we make about what it is, what should be done, and by whom? I do not think these are idle, abstract, academic questions, for the truths constructed in language about suicide (in defining what it is, and its causes and solutions, for example) produce many material effects in terms of national and international policies, research priorities and funding, and prevention practices. More subtly, a whole field of experience is formed in relation to authoritative knowledge of suicide – for suicidal people, attempt survivors, and their families and friends, as well as professionals involved in prevention and research.