Conference Agenda

Qualitative research into suicidal experiences from first-person perspectives is usually based on verbal description. However, these experiences can be difficult to capture in words alone. As part of an artistic PhD, this study explores ways to visualize and gain multimodal insight into facing suicidal thoughts and imagery throughout the suicidal process. Audiovisual autoethnographic, narrative, and artistic research methods were applied. Primary data were collected through video-based self-observation of the presenting author’s lived experience with suicidal ideation, complemented by participant observation within mental health care and the field of suicidology. The artistic output of the study is a one-hour five-screen video installation. The work is composed of a grid of facial close-ups over time, overlaid with a series of audiovisual small stories moving across screens. The grid depicts efforts of emotion regulation by externalizing and influencing thinking patterns, such as alternating between voicing core suicidal phrases and life-affirming ones. The small stories depict key moments involving people, places and activities, and sense-making of the suicidal episode. The analysis focuses on the development of the making process and the emotional-aesthetic experience of it, drawing on Hochschild’s concept of emotion work and O’Connor’s IMV model. Amid ethical issues, it offers insight into aspects of what it entails to visualize navigating suicidality over time, illustrating how senses, emotions, images, and actions come together in everyday experience. It also addresses how video in this specific context can enhance self-reflection. As a medium, the video installation enables a layered representation beyond language alone by presenting parallel perspectives and fragmented temporalities, while creating an embodied viewing experience for various audiences. The follow-up study employs design ethnography to develop a video art research tool for further examining first-person audiovisual narratives of facing suicidality, with a particular focus on aesthetic experience. Note: The video-installation is presented during ESSSB21.

This presentation draws on a scoping review covering the years 2016–2025, which is examining how ethical frameworks shape current research on youth suicide and suicidal behaviour. While ethical guidelines are designed to protect vulnerable participants, they also determine which populations can be included, which methodologies are permissible, and what types of knowledge can be generated. We explore how ethical responsibilities are conceptualised by researchers, how ethical requirements are operationalised across study designs, and how these intersect with regulatory environments, including data protection legislation and institutional safeguarding and ethics policies. Key themes include consent procedures, crisis management protocols, legal and institutional liability, and the origins and functions of ethical frameworks in suicide research. A central concern is the tension between participant protection and scientific validity, particularly when ethical constraints limit the ability to study high-risk or hard-to-reach groups. This includes migrant, refugee, and ethnic minority youth, for whom legal status, mistrust of authorities, and cultural norms may influence participation, risk disclosure, and data collection. We argue that ethical frameworks should be understood not only as protective mechanisms but as actively shaping research access, inclusion, and knowledge production.

Storytelling research has become an essential methodological approach for understanding the lived experiences of individuals in contexts of conflict. Yet, when working with narratives of women affected by war, researchers frequently encounter ethically complex terrain—particularly when stories reveal profound hopelessness, implicit or explicit suicidality, and other expressions of psychological distress. This paper examines the ethical and methodological considerations involved in conducting narrative research with women in war-affected settings, with a focus on how researchers can responsibly engage with narratives that surface themes of despair while maintaining participant safety, autonomy, and dignity.

Drawing on emerging scholarship and our field-based reflections, the paper first interrogates the unique vulnerabilities faced by women in conflict: gender-specific violence, displacement, loss of kinship networks, and the collapse of social support structures. These experiences often materialize in storytelling as fragmented, hesitant, or metaphorically coded expressions of hopelessness. Methodologically, such narrative forms demand flexible, trauma-informed, and culturally attuned approaches to interviewing, interpretation, and analysis. Ethically, researchers must navigate the boundaries between documentation and intervention, manage emotional risk for both participants and research teams, and build safeguards that honour participants’ agency without imposing external interpretations or pathologizing their experiences.

Ultimately, the paper argues for a framework of relational ethics in storytelling research—one that foregrounds trust, care, and ongoing consent, while recognizing the political and structural dimensions of suffering in conflict settings. By integrating ethical reflexivity with methodological rigor, researchers can more responsibly illuminate how women in war articulate despair, resistance, and meaning through narrative, contributing to a deeper understanding of the psychological impact of conflict and the transformative potential of storytelling.

During this presentation, the author will discuss about the use of arts-based and visual participatory visual methods in suicide research from a variety of projects in the Global South and among culturally-diverse populations.

Examples will span from the latest ethnographic documentary project on domestic violence and suicide in the Philippines to participatory visual methodologies where the participants/storytellers were directly involved in creating and making (i.e. filming, editing, distributing) their visual stories. Through these examples, the participants will be exposed to different techniques (from collaborative filming to digital storytelling to participatory video and photovoice), which were successfully adopted with a variety of populations: from people from migrant and refugee backgrounds in the UK and Australia, to urban and rural populations in South-East Asia.

The presentation will highlight the benefits and potentials of these decolonizing and inclusive methodologies to contribute to improving our understanding of suicidal behaviour and developing culturally-responsive and contextualized suicide prevention strategies.

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