Abstract

CANTO VALDES, Luis Roberto. Voluntary Death in Yucatan during the Porfiriato. Secuencia [online]. 2012, n.82, pp.73-100. ISSN 2395-8464.

This articie on suicide in Yucatán during the Porfiriato seeks to understand the preconceptions about suicides. This paper's contribucion lies in the fact that it incerprets the way these characters were perceived and described on the basis of articles in the 19th century press and judicial records analyzed in connection with the industrial boom at the time. Suicides commonly elicited feelings of pity but before expressing this grief, efforts were made to find a reason that would explain why people had killed themselves. In this respect, the paper analyzes the cases of voluntary death in light of the modernizing effect of the time in order to obtain a better understanding of how this type of events occurred.

Keywords : Suicide; modernity; pellagra; living conditions; supra-individual; porfiriato.