What Does it Mean to Decolonize Nursing?

In recent years, there has been more development of language around race and healthcare. We have defined more clearly in the past several years what implicit biases are, microaggressions and health equity. We have created trainings and workshops so that nurses and nurse faculty have an understanding of what these terms mean so that we may bring social and racial justice into the profession. But are these efforts helping to decolonize the nursing profession? If you're scratching your head wondering what I’m talking about, let me share more. I mentioned recently the ANA’s position statement that I co created called The Nurse’s Role and Responsibility in Unveiling and Dismantling Racism in Nursing. In it, we discuss the responsibility of nurses to decolonize the profession. I want to take a moment to explain what decolonization means. But first I’ll share what colonization is.

According to Sarah Trembath, professor at the American University in Washington, D.C. “Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people [by] another.” What this meant for indigenous peoples was displacement, and instituting legal and other structures which disadvantage them. What it means today for any marginalized communities is displacement, loss of culture, loss of language, customs, and the deliberate erasure of marginalized communities' contributions.

Conversely, decolonization is acknowledging that these colonized systems have had widespread impact on our society through all aspects of life. politics, media, and yes the SDoH. (housing, employment, food security etc) Further, colonizing practices continue to invade our health institutions, including nursing. To deliberately undo colonizing practices, we have to act on decolonization practices. According to Wilson and Yellow Bird (2005) authors of For Indigenous eyes only: a decolonization handbook describes decolonizing as, ‘the intelligent, calculated, and active resistance to the forces of colonialism that perpetuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies, and lands ... [with] the ultimate purpose of overturning colonial structures and realizing Indigenous liberation’ (223).

According to Battiste and Young-blood Henderson in In Oppression: A social determinant of health, the decolonization process involves affirming and activating paradigms of Indigenous knowledge to reveal the wealth and richness of Indigenous languages, world views, teachings and experiences, all of which have been systematically excluded from history, from contemporary educational institutions and from Eurocentric knowledge systems (Battiste and Young-blood Henderson 2012).

In the ANA position statement, one suggestion towards decolonizing the nursing profession includes:

Publicly recognizing the profession’s historic and pervasive involvement in supporting and promoting white supremacy, or white Eurocentric prioritization of all sectors of society, and perpetuating practices and models that are racially unjust and violent.

The ANA’s Racial Reckoning statement says “we must acknowledge that from 1916 until 1964, ANA purposefully, systemically and systematically excluded Black nurses”

Ask yourself, what harm has it caused to systemically and systematically exclude Black nurses today?

Recognize that to end American colonialism in nursing education, there is need for widespread change in nursing curricula and an assessment and correction of how nursing education is delivered and by whom (Waite & Nardi, 2017).There is much to be done to decolonize the nursing profession, I’ve just shared two ways we can begin that journey, what’s your next step?

Article Reference:

Toward decolonizing nursing: the colonization of nursing and strategies for increasing the counter-narrative

Elizabeth McGibbon,a Fhumulani M Mulaudzi,b Paula Didham,c Sylvia Bartond and Ann Sochane aSt. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada, bUniversity of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, cWestern Regional School of Nursing, Corner Brook, NL, Canada, dUniversity of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, eUniversity of Ottawa School of Nursing, Ottawa, ON, Canada Accepted for publication 1 June 2013

DOI: 10.1111/nin.12042

https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/c.php?g=1025915&p=7749710 History of Colonization by Sarah Trembath

ANA RJ Position Statement