Over the past few years, the role of private sector organizations as actors and investors in development processes has received increased attention. This article explores the rise of ‘philanthronationalism’ in Sri Lanka: the co‐development of business and philanthropy methods as a response to patronage, nationalization and militarization in the post‐war environment. Drawing on ethnographic research into indigenous forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the article identifies four kinds of philanthronationalist practice — passive, assimilative, reactive and collaborative — that provide a logic, mechanism and ethic for private sector development initiatives in the island whilst promoting a vision of the ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ nation state. Noting the emergence of similar philanthronationalist practices in Myanmar, the article concludes by arguing that the Sri Lankan case is unlikely to be unique and calls for further research into the partnerships that emerge between private philanthropy and nationalist movements in conflict/post‐conflict processes around the world.

This paper explores competing stories of suffering, frustration and anger that shape the performance and reception of suicidal behaviours in contemporary Sri Lanka. Drawing from the results of 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I show how suicidal acts fit within broader narratives of class and gender experience and expression that draw from contemporary and historical 'folk' and 'state' discourses. Debates over whether suffering, frustration and anger are legitimate socio-effective states to exhibit come to determine the kinds of claims and counter-claims that suicidal people on the one hand, and those charged with their treatment and management on the other, can make with regard to the efficacy of suicide as a means of social action. Through such debates-not only what it means to be suicidal in Sri Lanka but also what it means to be middle class or working class, male or female, etc. are made and remade anew.

More than a century after Durkheim's sociological classic placed the subject of suicide as a concern at the heart of social science, ethnographic, crosscultural analyses of what lie behind people's attempts to take their own lives remain few in number. But by highlighting how the ethnographic method privileges a certain view of suicidal behaviour, we can go beyond the limited sociological and psychological approaches that define the field of 'suicidology' in terms of social and psychological 'pathology' to engage with suicide from our informants' own points of view-and in so doing cast the problem in a new light and new terms. In particular, suicide can be understood as a kind of sociality, as a special kind of social relationship, through which people create meaning in their own lives. In this introductory essay we offer an overview of the papers that make up this special issue and map out the theoretical opportunities and challenges they present. A Problem of Enduring Human InterestSuicide is a problem of enduring human interest, forcing us to ask questions about ourselves and our world that other human behaviours do not. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 1 every year almost one million people across the globe die from suicide, equating to one such death every 40 s. Over the past half J. Staples

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Conspiracy theories about secret agendas behind vaccination programmes, the side effects of medical treatments, and cover-ups by the government or pharmaceutical industry are prevalent in many countries, and can have highly detrimental and far-reaching effects on people’s wellbeing. For, research and policy-making in public health, it is therefore vital to understand the nature, construction and dissemination of these health conspiracy theories (HCTs). Inspired by the influential ATU index of folktale types, this paper presents a typology and example index of international HCTs to be used as a tool to enable researchers to identify and categorise HCTs they come across, and to provide a pool of examples of HCTs which could be used in various fields of research. Also presented are two studies which used the HCT Index as a source of material. The first, a survey of HCT exposure and belief in the UK found that both familiarity and belief were high: 97% of Britons are familiar (having heard the same or similar before) with at least one HCT and 49% of Britons believed that at least one HCT was likely to be true. Demographic influences are also discussed. The second study, a focus group discussion health rumours in rural Sri Lanka, found concerns over threats to fertility as well as how to verify information that falls outside of typical experience.

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Ethnographic research amongst Sinhala Buddhists in community and clinical settings in the Madampe Division, northwest Sri Lanka, suggests that local understandings and practices of suicidal behaviour reflect the kinship structure. In particular, acts of self-harm and self-inflicted death arise in response to the breaking of core kinship rights, duties and obligations, or as a challenge to inflexibility or contradictions within the system. In either case, the morality of kinship is closely associated with the causes of suicidal behaviour, as the ‘inevitability’ or ‘evitability’ of kin relationships is negotiated and lived in practice. This article analyses how local political economies give rise to particular kinship and moral conditions, with special attention paid to those between household (gē) members and brothers-in-law (massinā).

Widger, Tom (2015) 'Suicide and the`poison complex' : toxic relationalities, child development, and the Sri Lankan self-harm epidemic. ', Medical anthropology., 34 (6 Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Suicide prevention efforts in Asia have increasingly turned to 'quick win' means restriction, while more complicated cognitive restriction and psychosocial programs have been limited. I argue the development of cognitive restriction programs requires greater consideration of suicide methods as social practices, and of how suicide cognitive schemata form. To illustrate this, I offer an ethnographically grounded study of how self-poisoning becomes cognitively available in Sri Lanka. The overwhelming preference for poison as a method of self-harm is not simply reflective of its widespread availability, but rather how cognitive schemata of poison -a 'poison complex' -develops from early childhood and is a precondition for suicide schemata. Limiting cognitive availability thus requires an entirely novel approach to suicide prevention that draws back from its immediate object (methods and causes of selfharm) to engage the wider poison complex of which suicide is just one aspect.