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Nursing practice is a very physical business. The work that most nurses do involves the use of their bodies as the primary tool of their work. Nurses take their physical selves to patients in order to carry out that work, the body of the nurse is often in direct contact with the bodies of patients that they care for. This thesis is about what I have called the �invisible bodies of nursing�, and I describe these throughout the body of the thesis. The physical body of the nurse, the body of practice, and the body of knowledge. The physical body of the nurse is absent in most nursing literature, it is sometimes inferred but seldom discussed. My contention is that the physical body of the nurse is invisible because it is tacit. Much nursing practice is invisible because it is perceived by many nurses to be inarticulable and is carried out within a private discourse of nursing, silently and secretly. Nursing knowledge is invisible because it is not seen as being valid or authoritative or sanctioned as a legitimate discourse by the dominant discourse. I approach these issues through an evolving �specular� lens. Luce Irigaray�s philosophy of the feminine and her deconstructing and reconstructing of psychoanalytic structures for women inform my work. Michel Foucault�s genealogical approach to analysing discourses is a powerful tool for exploring the history of the creation of the nurse and offers critical insights in to how nursing is perceived today. Maurice Merleau-Ponty�s phenomenology provides the flesh for my discussions about the embodied practice of nurses as beings in the world. Nursing�s struggle for recognition is ongoing. I discuss strategies that nurses could use to make themselves more �visible� in healthcare structures. The exploration of the embodied self of the nurse and through this the embodied knowledge of nursing is nascent. I hope to provide for nurses some food for both thought and discussion.

This thesis brings together two important aspects of Feminist Theory, the problem of reconceptualising community in terms of difference, and the role of temporality and futurity within feminist visions of the political. I argue that rethinking community directly entails a rethinking of temporality. This is initially suggested in my examination of the work of anthropologists Carol Greenhouse and Johannes Fabian, who argue that conceptions of time play an important role in social methods of ??managing?? difference. I then turn to an analysis of a number of different feminist accounts of community in order to show that, in each case, the attempt to rethink community in terms of an openness to diversity is invariably accompanied by a contestation of dominant linear temporal concepts. I suggest that these accounts represent a shift to an understanding of time as fractured, dislocated or out of joint. While this shift is explicit in some of the work I examine, specifically in Linnell Secomb and Rosalyn Diprose??s work, for the most part, the problem of temporality is not explicitly thematised. I therefore seek to uncover an emerging critique of linear temporality within feminist accounts of community, while also arguing for a greater recognition of the way time systems shape the way we understand and relate to difference. In order to extend the contestation of linear temporality developed in the first section, I turn to the work of Jacques Derrida. I extend the gesture towards a dislocated time by examining Derrida??s deconstruction of Aristotle??s account of time and his quasi-concept, diff??rance. Both of these accounts challenge the self-presence of the now. What proves to be particularly important for the problem of community is the way this fundamental dislocation suggests a reworking of social understandings of the heritage, transformation and political action. This suggestion is developed through an analysis of two of Derrida??s later essays ??The Other Heading?? and ??Psyche: Inventions of the other??, where I draw out his claim that an openness to the coming of the other involves both the active disruption of convention and tradition as well as a passive relation to an open and incalculable future. I conclude this thesis by arguing that Derrida??s account of time, as a disruptive exposure to alterity, is a provocative candidate for a model of temporality congenial to feminist projects of reconceptualising community. Accordingly, this thesis makes a unique contribution to feminist theory by connecting two significant but often separate concerns, in the process providing new avenues for feminist theorisations of community.

Nursing practice is a very physical business. The work that most nurses do involves the use of their bodies as the primary tool of their work. Nurses take their physical selves to patients in order to carry out that work, the body of the nurse is often in direct contact with the bodies of patients that they care for. This thesis is about what I have called the �invisible bodies of nursing�, and I describe these throughout the body of the thesis. The physical body of the nurse, the body of practice, and the body of knowledge. The physical body of the nurse is absent in most nursing literature, it is sometimes inferred but seldom discussed. My contention is that the physical body of the nurse is invisible because it is tacit. Much nursing practice is invisible because it is perceived by many nurses to be inarticulable and is carried out within a private discourse of nursing, silently and secretly. Nursing knowledge is invisible because it is not seen as being valid or authoritative or sanctioned as a legitimate discourse by the dominant discourse. I approach these issues through an evolving �specular� lens. Luce Irigaray�s philosophy of the feminine and her deconstructing and reconstructing of psychoanalytic structures for women inform my work. Michel Foucault�s genealogical approach to analysing discourses is a powerful tool for exploring the history of the creation of the nurse and offers critical insights in to how nursing is perceived today. Maurice Merleau-Ponty�s phenomenology provides the flesh for my discussions about the embodied practice of nurses as beings in the world. Nursing�s struggle for recognition is ongoing. I discuss strategies that nurses could use to make themselves more �visible� in healthcare structures. The exploration of the embodied self of the nurse and through this the embodied knowledge of nursing is nascent. I hope to provide for nurses some food for both thought and discussion.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Political Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 328-340). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR19838

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Gender, Work and Social Inquiry, 2007. / "December 2006" Bibliography: leaves [183-203]. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-237). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-195).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1999. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-354).