AIM: This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the concept of bio-power in the context of nursing, including a critique of the widespread rhetoric that nursing is deprived of power and consequently is an apolitical agency. BACKGROUND: Traditionally, power tends to be defined in terms of repression, interdiction and punishment. On the contrary, work by Michel Foucault with regard to bio-power brings into evidence the productive and positive nature of power at the heart of society. Despite being often used by various academic and professional disciplines, the concept of bio-power is rarely cited in nursing. FINDINGS: Nursing as a profession is at the heart of bio-power in that nurses lie at the crossroads between the anatomo-political and bio-political ranges of power over life. They therefore contribute to social regulation through a vast array of diverse political technologies. Nurses are at the flexing point of the state's requirements and of individual and collective aspirations. They occupy a strategic position that allows them to act as instruments of governmentality. Consequently, nurses constitute a fully-fledged political entity making use of disciplinary technologies and responding to state ideologies. CONCLUSION: The concept of bio-power offers a rich theoretical perspective for nursing, as it questions the definition of nursing care as neutral and mainly provided according to patients' best interests.
AIM: This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the concept of bio-power in the context of nursing, including a critique of the widespread rhetoric that nursing is deprived of power and consequently is an apolitical agency. BACKGROUND: Traditionally, power tends to be defined in terms of repression, interdiction and punishment. On the contrary, work by Michel Foucault with regard to bio-power brings into evidence the productive and positive nature of power at the heart of society. Despite being often used by various academic and professional disciplines, the concept of bio-power is rarely cited in nursing. FINDINGS: Nursing as a profession is at the heart of bio-power in that nurses lie at the crossroads between the anatomo-political and bio-political ranges of power over life. They therefore contribute to social regulation through a vast array of diverse political technologies. Nurses are at the flexing point of the state's requirements and of individual and collective aspirations. They occupy a strategic position that allows them to act as instruments of governmentality. Consequently, nurses constitute a fully-fledged political entity making use of disciplinary technologies and responding to state ideologies. CONCLUSION: The concept of bio-power offers a rich theoretical perspective for nursing, as it questions the definition of nursing care as neutral and mainly provided according to patients' best interests.