Abstract
Prisons are institutions where power and control are complex issues which have a significant affect on nursing. This paper focuses on the development of a framework to illuminate an understanding of the way in which power, discourse and knowledge connect within the prison setting, and thus impact on both the emotional labour and professional practice of the prison nurse. Central to developing this framework is reference to a study which explored the emotional labour of prison nurses. In affecting the complex knowledge/power relationships within the prison health care setting, regular high quality clinical supervision is suggested as one way in which prison nurses can be supported in challenging the regimes of truth that underpin the dominant discourses affecting their practice, and hence their levels of emotional labour.
Highlights
This paper presents a framework to illustrate the knowledge/ power connection in the prison health care setting
The knowledge/power connection considered in this paper, and viewed through the lens of a Foucauldian postmodernist philosophy highlights the way in which knowledge and power influence nurses working in this setting, taking into consideration the dominant discourses to which they are exposed and the resultant impact on their levels of emotional labour
He continues to suggest that postmodernism positively avoids definition, as to define it would be to “force it to commit itself, to state itself positively”.[7 p241]. Rodgers suggests that, there is no single definition that can convey intent and meaning, there is one basic tenet of postmodernism which “characterises the domain of the ideology”.[6 p133]. She provides the statement ‘the center does not hold’ as what she terms ‘the rallying cry of postmodernists’. This is viewed as one aspect of postmodern thinking, Alvesson highlights others such as the centrality of discourse; fragmented identities; the critique of the idea of representation; the loss of foundations and master narratives; and the knowledge/power connection as the central themes underpinning postmodern thinking.[5]. It is this knowledge/power connection that is developed in this paper and viewed as an effective way to assist in understanding the roots of emotional labour and clinical practice of nurses working in prison
Summary
This paper presents a framework to illustrate the knowledge/ power connection in the prison health care setting. It was developed as part of a study in which the emotional labour of nurses working in HM Prison Service in England and Wales was examined (Walsh E, 2007, unpublished thesis). The knowledge/power connection considered in this paper, and viewed through the lens of a Foucauldian postmodernist philosophy highlights the way in which knowledge and power influence nurses working in this setting, taking into consideration the dominant discourses to which they are exposed and the resultant impact on their levels of emotional labour. The study from which this framework was developed is not discussed in detail in this paper, brief detail of the study is provided to enable the reader to understand the world of the prison nurse and to illuminate the development of the proposed framework.[1]
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