The British black Caribbean nurse: Postcolonial race, gender and power

33^rd Euro Nursing & Medicare Summit

October 08-10, 2018 | Edinburgh, Scotland

Beverley Brathwaite

University of Hertfordshire, UK

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Adv Practice Nurs

Abstract :

A post-colonial perspective challenges idea of there being a universal standpoint on knowledge development. It provides a window for understanding how concepts of â??raceâ??, notions of racialized â??otherâ?? constructed within a particular historical and colonial context. The colonized existed as a primary means of defining the colonizer and of creating a sense of omnipotent unity. However, this relationship is not simply a binary (white colonizers) and the black colonized. There are divergent power relations between white women and men and for discussion here, women who identify themselves based on skin colour, culture, nation, country of birth and a nurse. The ongoing narrative post-colonial feminists seek to use post-colonial theory to highlight â??white privilege and racism in the nursing professionâ??. Encapsulating the complexities of colonial relationships; this addresses the lack of attention to marginalized groups such as the female British born Caribbean nurses (BBCN). The present location of the BBCN is still based on colonial, gendered and radicalized beliefs. A powerful nexus of white dominance, supremacy and modern constructs of race that subsists in the female dominated nursing profession and its most important employer the British National Health service. There is a less powerful â??Otherâ?? assumption of Caribbean womenâ??s gender and racialized identity, within society and as a nurse. This study will examine how the intersection of gender, race and class are inexplicably linked to colonial history and power structures than engendered the female black â??Otherâ??; how it resonates today in the differing forms of gendered racial discrimination, stereotyping and institutional racism that exists for female BBCNs and; how this impacts on navigation through their careers in the National Health Service.

Biography :