Foucault and nursing: a history of the present

While a commitment to the development of nursing theory has been a significant force in nursing scholarship, particularly in the US, the authors have noted a recent trend among nurses in different countries to develop Foucauldian interpretations of nursing. The objective of this paper is to identify...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nursing inquiry 1999-12, Vol.6 (4), p.231-240
Main Authors: Gastaldo, Denise, Holmes, Dave
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Diffusion of Innovation
Foucauldian analysis
Foucault
History of medicine
History of Nursing
History, 20th Century
Humans
Knowledge
Nursing
nursing care
Nursing Theory
Philosophy, Nursing
Politics
power
Power (Psychology)
Science
Semantics
Theories
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:While a commitment to the development of nursing theory has been a significant force in nursing scholarship, particularly in the US, the authors have noted a recent trend among nurses in different countries to develop Foucauldian interpretations of nursing. The objective of this paper is to identify those publications by nurses that employ a Foucauldian perspective and to provide a useful summative review of these works to date, which illustrate the potential contribution of a Foucauldian reading of nursing. The authors have reviewed 27 publications written by nurses which present a Foucauldian analysis. These publications were issued between 1987 and 1998 in English, Portuguese and German. The most frequent concepts treated in the literature reviewed are power/knowledge, surveillance, discourse, discipline, resistance, docile bodies, clinical gaze, and panopticon. The literature reviewed illustrates that Foucault’s concepts can have a profound impact on the way we conceive of nursing as a discipline and as a profession. Nursing care becomes a political event, nursing knowledge contributes to the dissemination of regimes of truth, and nurses, rather than being powerless, are perceived as professionals who exercise power over life in society. A Foucauldian reading of nursing enables nurses to move into a broader interdisciplinary and critical scholarship.
ISSN:1320-7881
1440-1800
DOI:10.1046/j.1440-1800.1999.00042.x