HABITUS, FIELD, AND SUICIDE: A BOURDIEUSIAN SYNTHESIS

Suicidal behaviour invariably has a social connection. While Pierre Bourdieu did not directly study suicide or deviant behaviour, his dualistic theory can be used to describe it. Bourdieu attempts to synthesize individual agency with social structure—explaining the relationship between an individual’s actions and the social context in which they occur—not through phenomenology or structuralism, but via a unit of typical social observation known as the theory of practice. This theoretical approach helps elucidate social reality by asserting that suicide is best comprehended as a dynamic interplay between agency and structure.