Las respuestas de los gobiernos

50

Because of the essentially applied nature of the discipline of nursing, issues of equality, difference and postmodernist challenges to feminist research have not been

-'

overwhelmingly present in the small amount of feminist research in the nursing literature. But there is nursing interest in feminist research and in this next section I will consider why feminist research has much to offer nursing.

4.5.1 The need for more creative methodology in nursing research.

Nursing has long recognised the need for the ongoing development of a strong research culture. More recently, nurse scholars have corne to consider the development and utilisation of research which offers a more comfortable fit with the ethos of nursing, and which will generate knowledge of particular interest and value to nurses.

Nursing as a practice discipline focuses on working alongside individuals in a wide range of contexts and situations. Nurses work with people to assist their transitions through normal life passages such as birth and death, and through experiences of crisis related to health and illness. Nursing also has a growing awareness of the contextually mediated choices and socio-political constraints which influence health status. For knowledge to have value to nursing it must offer explanation or illumination of the human experience in ways which allow growing reflection on the quality and applicability of our practice (Carryer, 1995).

This offers nursing the challenge of breaking new boundaries and gaining greater maturity as a discipline, in the process of experimenting to find new ways of generating knowledge free from the strictures of our past. Sandelowski (1993, p. 3) supports this in saying:

The task for scholars in a practice oriented discipline is to find ways to apprehend and re-present these different representations to achieve the 'fuller knowing' that advances knowledge and influences practice.

Schutz (1994), in noting the credibility of qualitative research for nursing, believes the ongoing search for a more subjective and reflexive approach for nursing research will be painful but worthwhile. She suggests that by making use of an openly subjective approach there is the potential for a degree of partnership with participants which offers

CHAPTER FOUR: Feminist Research 51

4.5.2 Support for feminist research in nursing.

Speedy (1991) argues that an increasing alignment with feminism by nursing will be useful for the development of the nursing discipline. She suggests this is because feminism has particular congruence with issues of concern to nursing. She particularly identifies the ethic of care, the centrality of patient or client, the reciprocity inherent in relationships between carers and cared for, and the importance of a healthy questioning of the appropriateness of traditional 'scientific' modes of thinking and research.

A natural progression of the growing alignment with feminism is increasing acceptance of and experimentation with feminist research. There is a small but growing body of feminist research from a nursing context, in published literature, such as Webb (1984); MacPherson (1985) ; Dickson (1990); Thompson (1991); Anderson (1991); Seibold, Richards & Simon (1994). Other nursing authors have published commentary on the suitability or applicability of a feminist focus in research for nursing. These include, amongst others and in addition to those already mentioned, Sampselle (1990); Speedy (1991); Morse (1991); Allen, Allman & Powers (1991); DeMarco, Campbell & Wuest (1993); King (1994) and Sigsworth (1995). Wuest (1995) and Keddy, Sims and Stern (1996) are nurse scholars who have explored the epistemological congruency of feminist research with grounded theory, a frequently used method within nursing research.

Feminist research allows for the possibility of carrying out research in a way which is ethically acceptable to the caring role of nursing. Distancing, objectification, and manipulation are at odds with the caring ethic, giving nurse researchers a high level of cognitive dissonance and placing them in an untenable position. Anderson (1991) addresses these issues, noting that as long as intervention by a researcher / clinician is seen as a dilemma and as a threat to obtaining reliably objective data, then this is not an appropriate situation for nurse researchers.

In considering feminist research, nurses need to clarify just when such research would be most appropriate. Clearly some research questions lend themselves to feminist research as the researcher comes to see that female gender issues are very central to the inquiry. The centrality of gender may not be all that feminist research entails or has to offer. It may be that the methodology itself will allow for methods of collecting information which fit comfortably with the ethos of nursing (Carryer, 1995).

Support for feminist research also comes from the slow growing mandate within nursing for a social activist role. Chopoorian (1986; 1990) has challenged nurses to go beyond dealing with health crises on a one-to-one level and to begin to address the socio-political

CHAPTER FOUR: Feminist Research 52

determinants to health status, especially issues of race, class and gender oppression. Hall and Stevens (1989) echo the call to reconceptualise the environment in nursing by incorporating the socio-political sphere. Butterfield (1990) and Kleffell (1991) describe the need to move beyond simple downstream nursing and widen our conceptual base to include a focus on what is happening to our clients upstream. Bunting & Campbell (1990) together with a growing number of nurse scholars, advocate for a synthesis of feminism and, nursing in order to best meet the health needs of clients, especially women. Feminism as a relevant and powerful world view could inform nursing science in a way that might render it emancipatory as well as knowledge generative.

4.6

Epistemological issues.

In the previous section, in the exploration of the development of feminist research, epistemological issues have already been addressed. For clarity they are summarised here using terminology most usually attributed to Harding (1987, 1989). She has identified three feminist epistemologies which have been in existence concurrently. These are feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint and feminist postrnodernism. These can be seen to have some degree of fit with the previous framework of 'equality', 'difference between' and 'difference within'.

Feminist empiricists seek what they see as a more objective truth by eliminating gender bias from the research process. They are less likely to be critical of research predicated on a positivist basis, but will critique the absence of women as research subjects. In feminist standpoint theory the context becomes important. Harding (1987, 1989) says that for a position to count as a standpoint it must be grounded in the objective location of women's lives. Standpoint theory, according to Harding, focuses on gender differences; on the differences between women's and men's situations which give a useful resource for generating theory about women's experience. According to Hekman (1997) the original formulations of feminist standpoint theory rest on two assumptions,

That all knowledge is located and situated, and that one location, that of the standpoint of women, is privileged because it provides a vantage point that reveals the truth of social reality (p. 350).

Hekman (1997) goes on to suggest that an important concern of feminist standpoint theorists has been to provide a position which can simultaneously accommodate difference whilst creating space for the analytic and political force of feminist theory. In

CHAPTER FOUR: Feminist Research 53

critiquing the work of Nancy Hartsock, Sandra Harding, Dorothy Smith and Donna Harraway, Hekman illuminates the sheer complexity of feminist epistemological debates, particularly at the points where feminist standpoint and feminist postmodernist theories intersect.

Feminist and postmodernist thinking both present a challenge to the basic epistemological foundations of Western thought. They share the impetus of finding different ways to describe human knowledge and the methods of its acquisition. Postmodernism problematises existing 'truths' including accepted notions of power, knowledge, truth and gender, and challenges their role in social structures.