ABSTRACT
In the Pacific Basin, the pace of change at the beginning of the twenty-first century is as revolutionary as it was in Europe and North America during the nineteenth century. This chapter focuses on how certain societal changes in these Pacific Basin countries might have worsened the mental health of certain populations, making them vulnerable to suicide. It presents one of the most widely accepted theories of how and why societal change can affect vulnerability to mental illness and suicide, namely the ideas of nineteenth-century French sociologist Emile Durkheim. The chapter then reviews the main features of the recent suicide epidemics in several countries of Oceania, India, and Japan. It assesses how well Durkheim's theory accounts for these three contemporary cases. Durkheim developed his theory after studying the European experience of rapid industrialization and early globalization in the nineteenth century and it remains influential today.
