Title: Restor(y)ing relational identities through (per)formative reflections on nursing education : a textual exhibitionist's tale of living inquiry

Author: Szabo, Joanna

Degree Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Program Education

Copyright Date: 2009

Subject Keywords Nursing education; Arts-informed inquiry; Living inquiry; Narrative; Reflective

Abstract:

At the outset, I dis-claim any knowledge or understanding what-so-ever, which is a peculiar stance to take for a nurse educator immersed in the language of “expertise,” “best practices,” and “champion” healthcare offerings. I do not dis-claim knowledge to absolve my professional accountability, nor do I absolve myself of being responsible for my text, rather I apprehend this journey of sentience and incarnation as an infant experiencing and learning the world in which it finds itself. It is only through a naïve, furtive play that I am able to proceed, through the difficulties and paradoxical tensions of constructed identities, without complete paralysis. As I play and ponder my way through multiple methodologies, a representational form emerges between repetitious moments of contemplation, remembering lived experiences, and reflecting on philosophical discourses. The difficulty or tension lies in the provocation of identities, as nurse, educator, and mother, among many other stances and formulations. Each identified discourse compels me to challenge the gaps in my knowledge in new ways. As I explore, I unravel the forms of text that are various incarnations of narrative reflection. The choices I make are about inquiring through concept, form and identification, which I both uniquely challenge as an individual and hold in common by being socially and historically situated. Each transition, contemplation and provocation is hopeful and volatile. I am always attuned to how it is that I live the spaces between each, unknowing my “self” as my otherness, letting go the ideal/real and becoming the (/) through a relational pedagogy.

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4911

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