Mattering: Per/forming nursing philosophy in the Chthulucene

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the process of entanglement at the 25th International Philosophy of Nursing Conference (IPNC) at University of California at Irvine held on August 18, 2022. Representing collective work from the US, Canada, UK and Germany, our panel entitled 'What can critical posthuman philosophies do for nursing?' examined critical posthumanism and its operations and potential in nursing. Critical posthumanism offers an antifascist, feminist, material, affective, and ecologically entangled approach to nursing and healthcare. Rather than focusing on the arguments of each of the three distinct but interrelated panel presentation pieces, this paper instead focuses on process and performance (per/formance) and performativity as relational, connected and situated, with connections to nursing philosophy. Building upon critical feminist and new materialist philosophies, we describe intra-activity and performativity as ways to dehierarchise knowledge making practices within traditional academic conference spaces. Creating critical cartographies of thinking and being are actions of possibility for building more just and equitable futures for nursing, nurses, and those they accompany-including all humans, nonhumans, and more than human matter.

Reflections on an interactive posthumanist panel: A model for future nursing philosophy conference engagement?

“…At the panel, something of a companion practice was enacted as participants passed yarn and crayons to each other. (I refer the reader to Laurin et al, 2023, in this issue, for a description of the session.) Leaving Haraway aside, my next thought as I listened at the session, related to the nursing courses I took or was aware of, when students were invited to experiment with nontraditional assignments such as sewing a patchwork blanket as a collective activity.…”

“…In this short dialogue contribution, I elaborate on three groups of ideas that crossed my mind while I attended an interactive panel on posthumanism (Laurin et al, 2023, in this issue) at the 2022 international nursing philosophy conference, held in Irvine California.…”

“…In this short dialogue contribution, I elaborate on three groups of ideas that crossed my mind while I attended an interactive panel on posthumanism (Laurin et al, 2023, in this issue) at the 2022 international nursing philosophy conference, held in Irvine California. These groups of ideas are (1) Haraway's string figures, (2) nursing critical pedagogies, and (3) the materiality of nursing practice.…”

“…At the panel, something of a companion practice was enacted as participants passed yarn and crayons to each other. (I refer the reader to Laurin et al, 2023, in this issue, for a description of the session. )…”

Special issue guest editorial: The thoughts we think with—As philosophers, as nurses—Matter

“…Picking up nursing's futures, Collier‐Sewell and Melino (2023) contemplate the place of philosophy in mental health nursing, expanding on a letter‐writing experiment, imagining futures, raising questions, and challenging normative language for thinking alterations in mental health. In a ‘polylogue’, Laurin and collaborators (2023) invite readers to converge in space and time in ‘Mattering: Per/forming Nursing Philosophy in the Chthulucene’, a critical posthuman challenge to the boundaries, methods, and conventions of nursing, philosophy, and nursing philosophy, recounting and recreating their conference panel. In conversation with Hopkins‐Walsh and company, Petrovskya (2023a) offers her reflections on engagement with this panel with ‘Reflections on an interactive posthumanist panel: A model for future nursing philosophy conference engagement?’…”