This essay reviews recent feminist scholarship, autobiographical narrative and fiction which explores nurses' engagement with empire in Africa and elsewhere in this century. Such literature suggests that while nursing work may have improved native health in colonized regions, it also contributed significantly to the establishment and stabilization of the racialized order of colonial rule. Of particular significance was colonial nursing's intervention into the reproductive practices of native women, resulting in the loss of local knowledges and autonomy, the disruption of complex (...) social links and indigenous health strategies, and the expansion of markets for western capitalism. (shrink)

The author would like to thank Karen Offen, David Nye and her husband Johannes Pedersen for helpful criticisms they offered of an earlier draft of this essay.

The aim of this study was to explore the influences, processes and environments that shaped the practice of European nurses for indigenous New Zealand (NZ) Māori communities who were being overwhelmed by introduced infectious diseases. Historical data were accessed from multiple archival sources and analysed through the lens of colonial theory. Through their work early last century, NZ nurses actively gained professional status and territory through their work with Māori. By living and working alongside Māori, they learned to practise in (...) new ways that influenced Māori health. By developing a new role in new professional territory, nurses extended their practice to include health promotion as well as disease prevention. Māori survival from epidemics improved, and the population grew over that period. For Māori, however, Eurocentric care alleviated their immediate health problems, but the detrimental impact of the mechanisms of colonisation overall has continued to the present day. (shrink)

This article offers a critical analysis of representations of loneliness and singlehood, embodied in the narrative of the ‘old maid’s’ lonely death. The study contributes to a complex understanding of single women and the resignification of emotions conventionally ascribed to this category. By bridging the gap between two rarely linked bodies of knowledge – singlehood and the sociology of emotions – the authors do not ask what loneliness is, but, following Sara Ahmed’s work, rather what loneliness does. To this end, (...) this article employs a content analysis of versatile media texts, focusing on the acclaimed television series Six Feet Under, a polysemic text which juxtaposes both conservative and subversive meanings. The study contributes both to the vibrant discussion of social emotions as well as to the existing critical scholarship about singlehood, and seeks to challenge the limited set of representations attached to single women, and hegemonic ideals of family and solitary life. (shrink)