Description
Camus’ Sisyphus shoots off with the bold claim that, ‘There is but one truly serious philosophical problem: that of suicide’. Should we accept philosophy as the master science of sciences in the ordo cognoscendi, suicide ought doubtless to be a prime interest in International Relations (IR) as well. However, suicide remains largely untheorised beyond disquisitions dependant upon questions of terrorism and political activism. Indeed, scholarly works such as Michelsen’s (2016) explore the self-sacrifice of combatants or actors, where suicide both possesses purpose and enacts a political agenda, but eschew senseless suicidal acts of everyday people. A chief example of this is presented in the case of the so-called ‘ceasefire generation suicides’ in Northern Ireland. There, during the 26 years after the peace agreement suicide rates have amounted to double the number of conflict-related deaths during the Troubles (NISRA 2024). Especially significant is that the 25-34 age group accumulates the highest number of deaths by suicide—a segment of population that was very young or not even born yet when the conflict ended. While IR’s focus on ‘political’ suicides (Fierke 2013) remains here uncontested, it produces the upshot of depoliticising everyday suicides. Drawing on the scholarship from peace psychology and qualitative field research undertaken in the region, this paper repoliticises the issue and considers the potential contributions of existentialist philosophy and Ontological Security Studies (OSS) to this rare but critical case of suicides in post-conflict societies. It does so not from the worn-out positivist approach of causal analysis; rather, it seeks to understand the international political sociology of the following question: how can peace bring about the ultimate and signifying, however paradoxical, violence—that exerted upon oneself after the enemy has ceased to be a threat?
