Exploring feminist political economy and feminist critical discourse analysis as methodologies in critical nursing research.

Abstract

This paper explores two critical feminist methodologies for nursing research: feminist political economy and feminist critical discourse analysis. The aim was to appreciate varied methodological approaches available for nurses to understand complexities in healthcare environments, above and beyond socially normative ways of knowing. Discursive paper. Published articles from nursing databases (CINAHL and ProQuest; no date restrictions) and interdisciplinary databases (Women's Studies International, Sociological Abstracts and Ovid MEDLINE; publication dates between 2017 and 2022). A discursive paper exploring and critically synthesizing the literature on feminist political economy and feminist critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how each methodological approach can be used in nursing. The findings of this discursive paper suggest there is an opportunity to draw on interdisciplinary studies for creative insights into how these methodologies may be helpful for nurses' scholarship and programmes of research. Although few nursing studies explicitly name a feminist political economy or feminist critical discourse analysis approach, several studies apply principles of these methodological approaches. There is an opportunity for these methodologies to be applied within the same project when there is a fit between the research questions and aims of both methodologies (studies where notions of gender and power are considered central and there are potential insights from exploring social progress, structures and the material, along with the social relations of discourses). Feminist political economy and feminist critical discourse analysis offer novel options for methodological analyses. Application of these methodologies may benefit critical nursing scholars looking for diverse critical methodological avenues to explore and to broaden nursing's methodological toolbox towards meeting social justice aims. No patient or public contribution.