Self-inflicted suffering as protest
My interest in self-inflicted suffering began with a chapter on
'Dying without Killing: Self-Immolations, 1963-2002'
(Making Sense of Suicide Missions, ed. Diego Gambetta, Oxford University Press, 2006).
For this I compiled
data on over five hundred cases where someone killed themselves as an act of protest,
without harming others, from all over the
world. This provided evidence to extend
my analysis of diffusion processes, to examine not only how acts of
self-immolation have clustered in waves, but also how this particular
technique of protest spread from its origin in Vietnam.
This process is examined in
'How Repertoires Evolve: The Diffusion of Suicide Protest in the Twentieth Century'
(Mobilization, 2013).
The Tibetan wave of 2012-13 is discussed in
'Self-Immolation in Context, 1963-2012' (Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, 2012).
Research on self-immolation poses a new theoretical puzzle: why do protesters inflict costs on themselves? That defies the logic of bargaining, exemplified by strikes and sit-ins, which is to inflict costs on recalcitrant opponents. This paradoxical phenomenon—what I call 'communicative suffering'—has escaped the attention of scholars of social movements. 'When Costs Are Benefits' explains why it can be rational to seek arrest, welcome police brutality, march long distances, and even kill oneself. I argue that suffering can become a source of power by signalling commitment or deprivation, by evoking anger or guilt, or by creating what I call 'second-order injustice.'
Michael Biggs, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford