Gendered endings: Narratives of male and female suicides in the South African Lowveld

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9258-y. Copyright @ Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012.Durkheim’s classical theory of suicide rates being a negative index of social solidarity downplays the salience of gendered concerns in suicide. But gendered inequalities have had a negative impact: worldwide significantly more men than women perpetrate fatal suicides. Drawing on narratives of 52 fatal suicides in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, this article suggests that Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘masculine domination’ provide a more appropriate framework for understanding this paradox. I show that the thwarting of investments in dominant masculine positions have been the major precursor to suicides by men. Men tended to take their own lives as a means of escape. By contrast, women perpetrated suicide to protest against the miserable consequences of being dominated by men. However, contra the assumption of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’, the narrators of suicide stories did reflect critically upon gender constructs

As novas tecnologias reprodutivas: o estatuto do embrião e a noção de pessoa

Dentre os vários dilemas que vêm recentemente emergindo em virtude da afirmação do embrião extracorporal, destaca-se o das condições de permissibilidade para realizar pesquisas com eles. Esta questão vem sendo traduzida nos termos de quais os atributos que conferem ao embrião o caráter de Pessoa e/ou quando se instala nele esta condição. Tomando como material os atuais debates, recomendações e legislações internacionais sobre o tema, o artigo examina as representações de Pessoa aí embutidas. Argumenta-se que o dissenso quanto ao modo de responder ao que é ser Pessoa e/ou seu instante fundador é compensado pela insistência em identificar a Pessoa - no caso, o embrião - como um Indivíduo. Sugere-se, ainda, que o exame desse mesmo material permite também tornar explícitos tensões e paradoxos que se imiscuem na nossa categoria axial de Indivíduo.<br>Amongst the several dilemmas recently emerging with regard to extracorporeal embryos, the one referring to conditions for allowing research with or on them stands out. The issue is still couched in terms of which attributes are necessary - or at what stage in time - personhood can be conferred on the embryo. Focusing on current debate, international recommendations, and pertinent legislation, the article examines the underlying representations of personhood. The central argument is that the lack of consensus over what it means to be a person (and which qualities instate this condition) in a human being is offset by the insistence on identifying Person - in this case, the embryo - as an Individual. The article further suggests that the review of these documents allows one to display the tensions and paradoxes pervading our central category of Individual