ABSTRACT
This chapter discussses the term "suicide attempts" as a general gloss to include comparable acts that might or might not have resulted in actual death, and acts-as was commonly the case-where intentionality was ambiguous. It explores how South Indian notions of personhood-which, leads to particular understandings and experiences of agency-might have an impact on how and whether people kill themselves. The chapter draws many respects from the villages constituting the part of coastal Andhra Pradesh that surrounds it. The notions of personhood and agency might also have mileage in understanding suicidal behavior in India. Explanations for increased rates of youth suicide in the South Indian leprosy colony where the research was conducted were reduced, in popular discourse about causality, to the familiar categories of debt, unfulfilled aspiration and desires, and romantic failures. Durkheim's finding that suicide rates vary very little within any given society-except at times of social upheaval-supports such a perspective on suicide.
