Resistance for Disrupting Inequities and Fostering Social Justice in Nursing: A Discussion.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual overview of resistance and argue for the need to embrace resistance as a part of nurses' professional repertoire for disrupting inequities and fostering social justice in both nursing education and practice. Discursive article. Published peer reviewed literature on 'resistance' and 'professional resistance' in nursing, medicine, social work and other allied health care professions. Enhancing critical consciousness and engaging in intersectional collaboration are promising strategies to embrace resistance for collective action towards disrupting inequities and injustices in nursing education and practice. Embracing and legitimising resistance in everyday individual and social interactions in educational and practice settings is instrumental to fostering social justice in nursing. Without resistance, nurses may risk jeopardising enactment of moral and ethical responsibilities and suppressing their professional values of caring and compassion. Nurses can embrace resistance in practice to counteract social injustice and promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and antiracism in clinical and educational settings. Research demonstrated that perceived and real inequities and injustices are common in nursing in the form of individual and structural racism, sex and gender discrimination, power imbalances and incivility. Nurses' engagement in resistance and increased capacity to resist injustices and incivilities can play an instrumental role in disrupting professional inequities in clinical practice and education. There was no patient or public involvement in the design or writing of this discursive article.