The influence of democratic racism in nursing inquiry

Abstract

Neoliberal ideology and exclusionary policies based on racialized identities characterize the current contexts in North America and Western Europe. Nursing knowledge cannot be abstracted from social, political and historical contexts; the task of examining the influence of race and racial ideologies on disciplinary knowledge and inquiry therefore remains an important task. Contemporary analyses of the role and responsibility of the discipline in addressing race-based health and social inequities as a focus of nursing inquiry remain underdeveloped. In this article, we examine nursing's engagement with ideas about race and racism and explore the ways in which nursing knowledge and inquiry have been influenced by race-based ideological discourses.Drawing on Henry and Tator's framework of democratic racism, we consider how strategic discursive responses-the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, colourblindness, political correctness and denial-have been deployed within nursing knowledge and inquiry to reinforce the belief in an essentially fair and just society while avoiding the need to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies. Greater theoretical, conceptual and methodological clarity regarding race, racialization and related concepts in nursing inquiry is needed to address health and social inequities. K E Y W O R D Sdiscourse, health inequities, multiculturalism, nursing, nursing knowledge, racism

Mixed and misunderstandings: An exploration of the meaning of racism with maternal, child, and family health nurses in South Australia

“…In Australia, ideological racism has largely gone unchallenged in both nursing education and health service professional development. Given the median years of practice, most participants in this study would have been schooled in core discourses that operationalize democratic racism, such as multiculturalism, that focus on culture and cultural differences and individualism within concepts of caring (Hilario, Browne, & McFadden, ).…”

Pandemic racism – and the nursing response

“…In nursing, scholars have been working in the field of anti-racism and social justice for decades (Hall & Fields, 2013;Kagan, Smith, & Chinn, 2014). They have been exposing fundamental inequities in our access to health and the structural violence that perpetuates them (Blanchet Garneau, Browne, & Varcoe, 2018;Hilario, Browne, & McFadden, 2018). They have called on their profession and its partners (in other health professions, government and decision-making bodies, and within communities) to do its part in redressing these structural inequities and ensuring a more level playing field in accessing the resources for health (Thorne, 2017).…”

Isn't it high time we talked openly about racism?

“…Various authors attribute our profession's ongoing lethargy around tackling this challenge to its pervasive adoption of a convenient liberal ideology that places the individual at the centre of his or her own capacity for attaining the resources for health (Blanchet Garneau, Browne, & Varcoe, ; Hilario, Browne, & McFadden, ; McGibbon, Malaudzi, Didham, Barton, & Sochan, ). In upholding the primacy of a distinctive emphasis on understanding the individual patient, as has been evident throughout the history of our theoretical activities (Thorne, ), the profession seems to have inadvertently sanctioned an increasingly narrow angle of vision, thereby obscuring the broader conditions for health as an essential knowledge development and practice priority.…”

“…Hilario et al. () also argue that nursing inquiry cannot be abstracted from its sociopolitical contexts. In their recent examination of contemporary analyses of the role and responsibility of nursing in relation to race‐based health and social inequity, they suggest that nurse scholars have commonly relied on a set of strategic discursive responses, specifically the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, colour‐blindness, political correctness and denial, to reinforce the belief that we live in an essentially fair and just society.…”

“…From their perspective, it is imperative that nurse scholars find ways to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies in the societies within which we live and in the institutional settings within which nursing is enacted. ‘By grounding inquiry in a collective responsibility for undertaking this task, nursing will maintain the integrity of its disciplinary knowledge and reclaim the humanity that democratic racism has deprived from the genealogy of nursing knowledge’ (Hilario et al., ; np). In order that we might advance toward this aim, Banks () claims that it is a fundamental responsibility of members of the nursing academy to speak out forcefully and with passion on matters such as racism.…”