Suicide as a Way of Belonging: Causes and Consequences of Cluster Suicides in Aboriginal Communities

Abstract

Whatever insight I might have into Aboriginal suicide I acquired unintentionally during two years that I lived as an ethnographic researcher in Cross Lake, Manitoba, a northern Aboriginal reserve community. I had initially intended to do a long-­‐term study of the community’s campaign, then in its early stages, to redress grievances following from the construction of a large-­‐scale hydroelectric project in the early 1970s and from the failure of a compensation treaty, the Northern Flood Agreement, signed in 1977. The strategy of implementing the Northern Flood Agreement, mainly through petty claims of compensation for broken boat propellers caused by floating debris or snowmobiles lost or damaged in weakened ice conditions, was clearly not meeting anyone’s aspirations for the treaty’s promises of employment and community development.