ABSTRACT
The chapter begins by arguing that the rich empirical work done on farmers’ suicides in India has not led to a comprehensive explanation of the phenomenon largely because of a failure to adequately address methodological issues. This has led to a variety of untenable approaches, from seeking universal explanations across situations of great heterogeneity to narrowing the focus to a point where interconnections are missed. This reinforces the book’s methodological theme of the need for continuous interaction between the empirical and the conceptual. The chapter seeks to build a conceptual framework that is consistent with the empirical patterns arrived at in the previous chapter. Drawing from a critical review of Durkheim’s classic work on suicides, it points to the need to take a closer look at the influence of integration and regulation in the processes that have caused farmers to commit suicide on the scale that they have done in parts of India.
