What Went Wrong? Problematizing Suicide Prevention in South Korea

Founded in the year 2016, the GW Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS) is a university wide Institute housed in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. The establishment of the GWIKS in 2016 was made possible by a generous grant from the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS). The mission of GWIKS is to consolidate, strengthen, and grow the existing Korean studies program at GW, and more generally in the greater D.C. area and beyond. The Institute enables and enhances productive research and education relationships within GW, and among the many experts throughout the region and the world.

GW Institute for Korean Studies

In this presentation, Kwon explores South Korea’s suicide prevention efforts and the limits of state-led approaches.

Elliott School of International Affairs, Room 505

EVENT DESCRIPTIONSince 2003, South Korea has consistently recorded the highest suicide rates among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This trend has unfolded alongside a persistently low birth rate and overall population decline, changes that parallel the country’s neoliberal turn in the late 1990s. In response, the Korean government launched a state-led suicide prevention initiative in 2005, influenced by frameworks promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite more than two decades of continuation and expansion, the initiative has produced a limited measurable impact, as reflected in the persistently high numbers and rates of suicide currently.In this presentation, Kwon examines South Korea’s state-led suicide prevention project by tracing how suicide and care are conceptualized and implemented within administrative systems and institutional practices. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2021 and 2022 while volunteering at multiple public suicide prevention centers and non-governmental organizations in South Korea, she explores how prevention efforts translate complex distress into standardized categories, protocols, and measurable outcomes. While these processes enable programmatic coherence, monitoring, and assessment, they also narrow how suicide and care are understood and addressed, limiting the scope of empathetic engagement and practical support available to individuals in crisis. The presentation discusses what is lost when suicide prevention operates primarily through administrative logics that prioritize efficiency and evaluability, and why state-led prevention initiatives remain reliant on such approaches despite their limitations. By foregrounding the governmental documents and everyday workings of suicide prevention, the presentation reflects on the tensions between administrative necessity and the demand to respond to the full complexity of lived experience. This event is hybrid.

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