Rethinking ethnography: Reconstructing nursing relationships

Abstract

Aims of the study. Critical ethnography is being adopted increasingly by nurses as a legitimate form of research methodology. This paper explores the research practices and dilemmas that emerge from this methodology using a recently completed ethnographic study of nurse-nurse and nurse-doctor interactions in a critical care hospital setting. Background. Critical ethnography provides a useful methodology that facilitates mutual dialogue among participants. It may be limited, however, by the central role of researchers and by a tendency to negotiate participants' realities according to a particular 'truth'. These concerns have been strongly critiqued by poststructuralists using concepts such a..