Browne Annette J, Varcoe Colleen
School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Vancouver BC, Canada.
Contemp Nurse. 2006 Sep;22(2):155-67. doi: 10.5172/conu.2006.22.2.155.
Despite a growing body of critical scholarship in nursing, the concept of culture continues to be applied in ways that diminish the significance of power relations and structural constraints on health and health care. In this paper, we take a critical look at how assumptions and ideas underpinning conceptualizations of culture and cultural sensitivity can influence nurses' perceptions of Aboriginal peoples and Aboriginal health. Drawing on examples from our research, we examine how popularized assumptions about culture can shape nurses' views of Aboriginal patients. These assumptions and perceptions require closer scrutiny because of their potential to influence nurses' practice with Aboriginal patients. Our specific aims are to: (a) consider some of the limitations of cultural sensitivity in relation to health care involving Aboriginal peoples; (b) explore how ideas about culture have the potential to become problematic in nursing practice with Aboriginal peoples; and (c) explore the relevance of a 'critical cultural approach' in extending our understanding of culture in relation to Aboriginal peoples' health. We discuss a critical cultural perspective as one way of broadening nurses' understandings about the complexities of culture and the many facets of culture that require critical consideration. In relation to Aboriginal health, this will require nurses to develop greater critical awareness of culture as a relational process, and as necessarily influenced by issues of racism, colonialism, historical circumstances, and the current political climate in which we live.
尽管护理领域的批判性学术研究日益增多，但文化概念的应用方式仍在削弱权力关系以及健康与医疗保健方面的结构限制的重要性。在本文中，我们批判性地审视了支撑文化及文化敏感性概念化的假设和观念如何能够影响护士对原住民及原住民健康的认知。借助我们研究中的实例，我们考察了关于文化的通俗化假设如何能够塑造护士对原住民患者的看法。由于这些假设和认知有可能影响护士对原住民患者的护理实践，因此需要更仔细地审视。我们的具体目标是：(a) 思考在涉及原住民的医疗保健方面文化敏感性的一些局限性；(b) 探究关于文化的观念在针对原住民的护理实践中如何有可能成为问题；以及 (c) 探究 “批判性文化方法” 在扩展我们对与原住民健康相关的文化的理解方面的相关性。我们将批判性文化视角作为拓宽护士对文化复杂性以及需要批判性思考的文化诸多方面的理解的一种方式进行讨论。就原住民健康而言，这将要求护士培养更强的批判性意识，认识到文化是一个关系过程，并且必然受到种族主义、殖民主义、历史情况以及我们所处的当前政治气候等问题的影响。
