Through a Socio-political Lens

Abstract

Health professionals are the service providers who link people to technology, information, and knowledge. Socio-political knowing is a broadening of the nurses gaze to include the wherein or context of nursing and those who influence it. Whilst inevitably raising questions of equity and circumstance, of privilege, and of invisibility, socio-political knowing does not necessitate a critical social theory or critical feminist lens. The introduction of the language of emancipation without depth of philosophical understanding can leave people with a shallow veneer of critical social theory or critical feminist theory. This can also leave people with a rhetoric of change and emancipation without the knowledge or ability to follow-through with the social challenge inherent in its philosophical stance. We are at a critical time in health care where our fascination with high technology and expensive pharmaceuticals has led us to an unsustainable health future and where choices made will influence options for communities to come.