Nursing practice as bricoleur activity: a concept explored.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Science
• Anthropology
• Philosophy

Background:

• Nursing practice debates often highlight tensions between artistic, scientific, and mythical approaches.
• The concept of bricoleur activity, derived from Levi-Strauss, offers a new lens for understanding nursing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To argue for the conceptualization of nursing practice as a bricoleur activity.
• To analyze the implications of this conceptualization for nursing epistemology, pedagogy, and praxis.

Main Methods:

• Drawing on empirical work investigating nurses' intuition.
• Utilizing the theoretical framework of Claude Levi-Strauss.
• Integrating concepts from nursing, philosophy, psychology, education, sociology, and anthropology.

Main Results:

• Nursing practice is characterized by practitioners acting as bricoleurs, utilizing 'shards and fragments' of the immediate situation.
• This embodied, bricoleur approach is essential for addressing individual patient needs.

Conclusions:

• Conceptualizing nursing as a bricoleur practice offers significant implications for how nursing knowledge is developed (epistemology), taught (pedagogy), and performed (praxis).
• This interdisciplinary perspective enriches the understanding of nursing's complex nature.