The need for black and women of colour feminist epistemologies in critical suicide studies

The ways Black and Women of Colour (WoC) feminists have continued to challenge the legitimacy of racist ‘feminism’ to call itself feminism teaches us about the ways language can be appropriated for destructive
means.

Black and WoC feminists have critiqued dominant white feminism, which has positioned itself as a
version of ‘feminism’ that excludes and denies the lived experiences of Black women and WoC. Understanding
how Black and WoC feminist critiques of white feminism transformed feminist studies and activism offers
Critical Suicide Studies an opportunity to consider important lessons if it is to speak truth to power both outside and within its disciplinary field. Building on the work of Ahmed (2017) this paper issues a forewarning to the field of Critical Suicide Studies around the potential dangers of using language to project a critical stance, whilst not being as attentive to what that projection conceals, enabling non-action through its very utilisation. In terms of mainstream suicidology, this paper highlights the importance of attention to language and how a focus on suicide has been mobilised to disappear the social structures at work that underwrite suicidality.

Theorising through the affects of language, the paper proposes an intersectional feminist critical suicide studies that centres the experiences and knowledges of marginalised people; that is explicitly anti-racist and anti-‘psy’ in stance; that raises consciousness of oppressive and marginalising discourses and practices of corporeal, emotional, and epistemic violence; that is vulnerable, wilful, political and ethical; and that seeks to find associations and solidarities across differences towards visions, hopes, and actions for a better world.