ORCID
- Bridie Kent: 0000-0001-9550-1913
Abstract
Using, and extending, Butler’s theory of recognition and censorship, this article examines the way in which nurses’ subject positions were regulated in the transformative liminality of the COVID-19 pandemic, where normal matrices of power were ‘undone’ and new ones formed. During the pandemic, societal discourses regarding nurses shifted from treating them as less-than-human and their care-work invisible and unrecognised (derealised), to an elevated position where they became appreciated and treated as heroes, then reverting to a derealised state. As part of the building of subjectivities in this liminal period, nurses constructed boundaries against ‘unmoral’ others, either members of the public, or other nurses. This article highlights how the ‘derealisation’ by powerful discourses compels nurses into ongoing and ambivalent negotiations with self and others as they struggle to be recognised for the risky edgework they performed with lasting consequences for the nursing profession.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2025-06-06
Publication Title
PuntOorg International Journal
Volume
10
Issue
2
Acceptance Date
2023-11-09
Deposit Date
2025-07-17
Additional Links
https://www.puntoorginternationaljournal.org/index.php/PIJ/article/view/170, https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105008105901
Keywords
COVID-19, Hero discourses, Nurses, Recognition, Wellbeing
First Page
211
Last Page
237
Recommended Citation
Conolly, A., Rowland, E., Abrams, R., Harris, R., Kelly, D., Kent, B., Couper, K., & Maben, J. (2025) 'The ‘un-doing’ and ‘re-doing’ of nurses’ derealisation: Exploring the effects of the heroic keyworker discourses during the COVID-19 pandemic', PuntOorg International Journal, 10(2), pp. 211-237. Available at: 10.19245/25.05.pij.10.02.4
