Suicide Voices: Neoliberal Globalisation and Workplace Trauma

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France, during the 2000s, experienced what the international media has described as an 'epidemic' of workplace suicides with unprecedented numbers of workers choosing to kill themselves in work or because of work. With a 70% increase in recorded cases since 2000, France today has the second highest rate of workplace suicides in the world after Japan. French workplace suicides are part of a rising international phenomenon with well-publicised cases in Germany, Spain, Australia, China and Japan. Recent French suicides have been marked by an intensified production of texts through which suicidal individuals have sought to describe for themselves the experiences that have pushed them to take their own lives. The purpose of the fellowship is to examine, through a close reading of testimonial material, what these 'suicide voices' can tell us about the lived conditions of human labour in the historical juncture of neoliberal globalisation. The fellowship undertakes an analysis of a corpus of testimonies linked to 82 suicide cases within three French companies during the period 2005 to 2015: telecommunications multinational, Orange; car manufacturer, Renault; and French postal services, La Poste. Each of these companies experienced an acute 'suicide wave' amongst its employees at a time of restructuring in response to the external economic imperatives linked to neoliberalism. The research examines an extensive corpus of letters, audio recordings, e-mails, press statements and legal documents written by suicidal individuals and intended for both private and public audiences. Whilst testimonies in a number of well-publicised cases have been published by the media, the full corpus of testimonial material has not yet been subject to academic scrutiny.The fellowship examines suicide narratives as a unique testimonial mode that can shed light on subjective experiences of economics in the contemporary neoliberal and globalised workplace. The research locates suicide testimonies at a juncture between the everyday and the extreme. Whilst embedded in everyday life, these testimonies also reveal how the quotidian workplace can be transformed into a site of extreme human suffering. Why and how does work or conditions of work push some individuals to take their own lives? What are the social conditions to which these testimonies bear witness? Why is self-killing envisioned as a response to everyday experiences of work?The fellowship aims to bring an arts and humanities perspective to bear on our understanding of a critical social and public health phenomenon by combining innovative theoretical and methodological insights from literature (testimony studies), social sciences scholarship and public health.Three principal objectives are sought during the eighteen months of this fellowship. A first objective is to examine suicide narratives as a form of testimony that can transform personal trauma into public meaning and shed light on the conditions of labour in the contemporary historical juncture. The research aims to provide a critical alternative to 'top-down' theories of economics that often overlook experiential and quotidian dimensions of work. A second objective is to examine the historically-specific conditions of workplace suicides and ask why neoliberalism, as compared with earlier economic phases, has exacerbated suicidal tendencies in the workplace. A third objective is to consider the contemporary significance of suicide and ask whether workplace suicides constitute a new and radical mode of protest. To what extent do suicides stem from a failure of collective representation and a re-embodiment by the individual of grievances that might otherwise be given social expression? From the vantage point of the singular and extreme experiences narrated in suicide testimonies, the fellowship aims to investigate the human and social effects of neoliberal economics in the workplace within the contemporary historical juncture.