Agents of care and agents of the state: bio‐power and nursing practice

Abstract

The concept of bio-power offers a rich theoretical perspective for nursing, as it questions the definition of nursing care as neutral and mainly provided according to patients' best interests.

Sovereign power, spectacle and punishment: a critical analysis of the use of the seclusion room

“…Of particular interest to this paper is sovereign power and, more particularly, how it was directly applied onto the deviant body and publicly displayed to reinforce mass compliance to monarchical law in the eighteenth century (Perron, Fluet, & Holmes, 2005). At that time, sovereign power was exhibited before the eyes of the crowd as a way to express the will of the King and his power to brutally punish deviant individuals in barbaric, spectacular and revolting rituals (Miller, 1995).…”

Governing Bodies and Spaces

“…10 This form of power is defined as having 2 poles: the anatomo-political pole includes forms of power that address individuals, whereas the bio-political pole seeks to control entire populations. 11 Anatomo-politics is the pole concerned with individual bodies and various processes that make up disciplines or rather, as Foucault explains, methods that make possible the meticulous control of the operations of the body and the production of a skillful, productive, and docile self. 10 Bio-politics, on the contrary, is imbued with the regulatory control of populations and the calculated management of life itself, which, according to Foucault, is tied to economic and political imperatives.…”

“…In other words, the numbers extracted by means of surveys, census, studies, and so forth serve to justify the deployment of bio-political interventions for the management and regulation of populations. 11 To this end, bio-political interventions take on the semblance of solutions to discrepancies uncovered in the process of gathering information about a particular population and biological occurrences within that population. 11 The linkage between the production of knowledge about a population and the potential for more effective regulation is one that cannot be understated.…”

History as reflective practice: A model for integrating historical studies into nurse education

“…A historical understanding of the development of the profession and the practice of nursing, and the power relations both internal and external, places the nursing self in its broader social context. This raises questions of power, privilege and moral assumptions that nurses can bring to their practice (Holmes & Gastaldo, 2002;Perron et al, 2004;Perron et al, 2010). A historical sensibility helps put these personal values and beliefs, and the values of clients, in their historical and social context, and considers the importance of this context for whole person care.…”