Vulnerable women and neo-liberal globalization: debt burdens undermine women's health in the global South

Respect for Human Vulnerability: The Emergence of a New Principle in Bioethics

Vulnerability has become a popular though controversial topic in bioethics, notably since 2000. As a result, a common body of knowledge has emerged (1) distinguishing between different types of vulnerability, (2) criticizing the categorization of populations as vulnerable, and (3) questioning the practical implications. It is argued that two perspectives on vulnerability, i.e., the philosophical and political, pose challenges to contemporary bioethics discourse: they re-examine the significance of human agency, the primacy of the individual person, and the negativity of vulnerability. As a phenomenon of globalization, vulnerability can only be properly addressed in a global bioethics that takes the social dimension of human existence seriously.

Globalization, culture and psychology

This article outlines the cultural and psychological effects of globalization. It looks at the impact of globalization on identity; ideas of privacy and intimacy; the way we understand and perceive psychological distress; and the development of the profession of psychology around the world. The article takes a critical perspective on globalization, seeing it as aligned with the spread of neoliberal capitalism, a tendency towards cultural homogenization, the imposition of dominant 'global north' ideas and the resultant growing inequalities in health and well-being. However, it also argues that the increased interconnectedness created by globalization allows for greater acknowledgement of our common humanity and for collective efforts to be developed to tackle what are increasingly global problems. This requires the development of more nuanced understandings of cultural differences and of indigenous psychologies.

Conceptualising spirituality and religion for healthcare

AIMS

To discuss some of the challenges of conceptualising spirituality and religion for healthcare practice.

BACKGROUND

With the growing interest in spirituality in healthcare, has come the inevitable task of trying to conceptualise spirituality, a daunting task given the amorphous nature of spirituality, the changing understandings of spirituality among individuals and the diverse globalised society within which this task is taking place. Spirituality's relationship to religion is a particularly challenging point of debate.

DESIGN

Critical review.

CONCLUSIONS

Three social and historical conditions - located in the context of Western thought - have contributed to current conceptualisations of spirituality and religion: the diminishment of the social authority of religion as a result of the Enlightenment focus on reason, the rise of a postmodern spirituality emphasising spiritual experience and current tensions over the ideological and political roles of religion in society. The trend to minimise the social influence of religion is a particular Western bias that seems to ignore the global megatrend of the resurgence of religion. Current conceptualisations are critiqued on the following grounds: that they tend to be ungrounded from a rich history of theological and philosophical thought, that a particular form of elitist spirituality is emerging and that the individualistic emphasis in recent conceptualisations of spirituality diminishes the potential for societal critique and transformation while opening the door for economic and political self interest.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Constructing adequate conceptualisations of spirituality and religion for clinical practice entails grounding them in the wealth of centuries of philosophical and theological thinking, ensuring that they represent the diverse society that nursing serves and anchoring them within a moral view of practice.

Examining the potential of nurse practitioners from a critical social justice perspective

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly called on to provide high-quality health-care particularly for people who face significant barriers to accessing services. Although discourses of social justice have become relatively common in nursing and health services literature, critical analyses of how NP roles articulate with social justice issues have received less attention. In this study, we examine the role of NPs from a critical social justice perspective. A critical social justice lens raises morally significant questions, for example, why certain individuals and groups bear a disproportionate burden of illness and suffering; what social conditions contribute to disparities in health and social status; and what social mandate NPs ought to develop in response to these realities. In our analysis, we draw on lessons learned from the initial Canadian experience with the introduction of NPs in the 1970s to consider the renewed and burgeoning interest in NPs in Canada, Australia and elsewhere. As we argue, a critical social justice perspective (in addition to the biomedical foci of NP practice) will be essential to sustaining long-term, socially responsive NP roles and achieving greater equity in health and health-care.

Globalization and Health: Challenges and Prospects

This chapter begins with a brief description of the purpose of the book, which is to provide a survey of current and emerging global threats to health and to analyze the collective and institutional responses to globalization. It also addresses the role of key intergovernmental institutions (the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Group of Eight Nations (G8)) in protecting—or, some claim, threatening—the health of the global public. The chapter then discusses the concept of “globalization”, and globalization through history. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

Toward a critical theoretical interpretation of social justice discourses in nursing

Despite widespread appeals to social justice, nursing conceptions of this ideal have been critiqued as incomplete and inconsistent. With the aim of contributing to a critical dialogue on discourses of social justice in nursing, we explore contemporary theories of social justice and their move beyond a distributive paradigm, employing techniques of replication and critique of social justice discourses in nursing. We consider how postcolonial feminist theory can help us understand the relevance of more recent critical interpretations of social justice, particularly in reinterpreting and broadening nursing's individualistic focus on social justice so that due consideration and actions are directed toward the intersecting impact of historically and socially mediated conditions on health and human suffering.