Transcending transculturalism? Race, ethnicity and health-care.
This paper offers a critical commentary on the essentialist concept of ethnicity, which, it is argued, underpins the discourse of transcultural health-care. Following a consideration of the difficulties that ensue from the way in which ethnicity has been theorised within transcultural nursing in particular, the paper turns to a consideration of alternative ways of thinking about ethnicity, which have emerged from more recent social anthropology and postmodernism. It addresses the question of how to therorise ethnicity in a way that does not entail its reification as a set of fixed cultural properties, and makes some tentative suggestions for the possibility of a critical culturalist approach to difference and healthcare practice, which must include a consideration of racisms.
Culley
Lorraine
L
Health Studies, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. lac@dmu.ac.uk
D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel / Q000208:ethnology; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology; D002983:Clinical Competence; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000208:ethnology; D006808:Humanism; D006801:Humans; D016294:Models, Nursing; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D033302:Postmodernism; D011287:Prejudice; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000208:ethnology; D012919:Social Behavior; D012930:Social Dominance; D012933:Social Identification; D012945:Social Values; D013240:Stereotyping; D016746:Transcultural Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*