Undoing Suicidism - by Alexandre Baril

Book Synopsis

In Undoing Suicidism, Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structural suicidism, a hidden oppression that, until now, has been unnamed and under-theorized. Each year, suicidism and its preventionist script and strategies reproduce violence and cause additional harm and death among suicidal people through forms of criminalization, incarceration, discrimination, stigmatization, and pathologization. This is particularly true for marginalized groups experiencing multiple oppressions, including queer, trans, disabled, or Mad people.

Undoing Suicidism questions the belief that the best way to help suicidal people is through the logic of prevention. Alexandre Baril presents the thought-provoking argument that supporting assisted suicide for suicidal people could better prevent unnecessary deaths. Offering a new queercrip model of (assisted) suicide, he invites us to imagine what could happen if we started thinking about (assisted) suicide from an anti-suicidist and intersectional framework.

Baril provides a radical reconceptualization of (assisted) suicide and invaluable reflections for academics, activists, practitioners, and policymakers.

Review Quotes

"Undoing Suicidism is a necessary intervention and corrective to the study of suicide. His approach is nothing short of radical in its interrogation of the foundational assumptions that have guided critical perspectives on suicide for more than 100 years when sociologists began studying it. Baril shows us that perhaps the true value of life is not found in life itself but in welcoming all the opportunities it affords, including being able to choose when to say goodbye to our loved ones and to ourselves."--Disability & Society


"Comprehensive and groundbreaking.... Undoing Suicidism represents a superlative example of autothanatotheoretical scholarship. Baril makes clear from the outset that this book establishes primarily a conceptual foundation for discursive and normative change to end suicidism and expand suicide-affirming care.... Baril's work is essential reading for anyone who is interested in understanding and addressing the fuller range of suicidal lived experiences from a vantage point of more inclusive social justice."--Sexuality Research and Social Policy


"Undoing Suicidism is a deeply considered and courageous work that offers an unapologetically moral stance against discrimination and exclusion as the basis for reimagining suicide, social action and caregiving. It asks no more (and no less) of us than to let go of our attachments to certain ideas, ways of knowing and beliefs. This is certainly something the field of suicide prevention needs to do more."--ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation blog


"Undoing Suicidism is written in a remarkably accessible way, and shakes up critical suicidology by bringing a fresh, radical and sensitive perspective to the question of the right to choose one's own death."--Frontières


"[A] provocative critique of 'suicidism, ' a form of 'structural oppression' that stigmatizes people who want to die.... Baril argues that the desire to die is valid and that assisted suicide should be available in some form to all 'suicidal people, regardless of their dis/abilities, health or age.'... Readers may agree with some of the author's carefully argued points about the structural obstacles suicidal people face, and yet struggle to accept both his contention that 'there are no good or bad reasons for wanting to die' and his jarring critiques of 'compulsory aliveness.' This is sure to spark debate."--Publishers Weekly

"Undoing Suicidism is a daring, original, and paradigm-shifting book that directly challenges the taken-for-granted idea that suicidal thoughts and actions are unnatural, undesirable states that should always be prevented. Grounded in queer, trans, Mad, and crip theoretical frameworks, and deeply informed by the author's first-hand experience as a suicidal person, Baril imagines a radically different world where the well-documented harms caused by suicidism and preventionist logic are replaced with practices of compassion and solidarity, which grant all people the freedom to explore, express, live with, and sometimes die by, suicide."--Jennifer White, Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, and lead editor of Critical Suicidology: Transforming Research and Prevention for the 21st Century

"Undoing Suicidism is a tremendous contribution to theorizations of living and dying. It is unsettling in the most productive manner and driven by a profound abolitionist philosophy of desires for death as the grounds for a richer, more responsive politics of life. Baril offers a compelling vision of justice for suicidal people that demands rethinking some of the most cherished ideals of liberal personhood."--Jasbir K Puar, author of The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability

"In this important book Alexandre Baril offers a queercrip reframing of (assisted) suicide that explains and critically intervenes in suicidism (the oppression of suicidal people) and ableist, sanist, and ageist arguments about assisted suicide. Justice, care, and support for suicidal people requires questioning what Baril calls 'compulsory aliveness' and listening to, rather than criminalizing and pathologizing, suicidal people. This is an extraordinary and well-researched book. Baril's care-full approach to this difficult topic makes a crucial contribution to queer, trans, feminist, and crip theories and challenges readers to rethink dominant responses to suicide."--Kim Q. Hall, Professor of Philosophy, Appalachian State University, and author of Queering Philosophy

About the Author

Alexandre Baril is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Ottawa. He is the recipient of the 2021 Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion President's Award at the University of Ottawa and the 2020 Francophone Canadian Disability Studies Association Tanis Doe Award for his contributions to research and activism on disability.