The (de)fragmented body in nursing education

Abstract

What is the role and significance of the body in the professional practice of nursing, as well as its associated forms of professional learning and education? How does the body matter in nursing, and is this changing? What risks follow the increasing technologisation of professional practice? What challenges exist in today’s changing practice-world, with dramatic consequences for the way in which nurses think about and engage with their bodies and those of the patients in their care? These and other questions form the basis for this discussion of the body in nursing. Working auto-ethnographically and dialogically, it examines the links between the corporate body of nursing as a regulated professional practice field and what can be called the practice body of the nurse, making specific reference here to professional education.