Open AccessIMPROVISATION: Sygeplejersker på arbejde i Uganda
Author(s) -
Helle Max Martin
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
antropologi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2596-5425
pISSN - 0906-3021
DOI - 10.7146/ta.v0i51.106701
Subject(s) - improvisation , interim , identity (music) , phenomenon , nursing , sociology , psychology , medicine , aesthetics , political science , epistemology , law , visual arts , art , philosophy
This article is about improvisation, which is a term that nurses in Uganda employ to
describe how they overcome the practical difficulties of working in an institutional
setting, which lacks the necessary equipment, drugs and staff. On the basis of data
from Tororo Hospital in Eastern Uganda, the article explores the meanings of the term
improvisation, how it relates to a general discourse about the nursing profession, and
how the nurses handle and make sense of a complex and contradictory work situation.
Improvisation is a term that both makes customary nursing practice legitimate and
supports a professional identity under pressure. It also articulates a nostalgic longing
for better times – located both in the past, the golden age of nursing, and in the future
since the term improvisation constructs current practice as an interim phenomenon.
Thus, “improvisation” offers a way for the nurses to domesticate the contradictory
forces, which play a prominent part in nursing in Uganda today.