General to particular: in search of singularity in the production of nursing

EDITORIAL

General to particular: in search of singularity inthe production of nursing

Marcos Antônio Gomes Brandão^I

^I Editor Associado da Escola Anna Nery Revista de Enfermagem. Professor Adjunto do Departamento de Enfermagem Fundamental. Docente do quadro permanente do Programa de Pós-Graduação da EEAN/UFRJ. Pesquisador do Núcleo de Pesquisa de Fundamentos do Cuidado de Enfermagem (Nuclearte). Pesquisador do Grupo de Estudos em Aprendizagem e Cognição (GEAC). Brasil. E-mail: [e-mail]

With the beginning of editorial year 2009 of the EAN Journal of Nursing, we would like to invite our readers to participate in a careful exercise in search of the main elements addressed in the different articles. We should start by taking a close look at the articles to find elements of common identity. Beforehand, we would like to stress that this is not an exercise of simple or easy categorization, because of the visible scope and complexity of the material.

We suggest you start your search by looking at contrast rather than figure; this means, try not concentrating on uniqueness, but more on multiplicity.

At a conceptual level, theorists have tried to cut the size of nursing in search of a clear object of discipline. However, the publication of each area intensifies the feeling that we are more complex than our ability to separate, conceptualize and classify. What this issue of the Journal offers is an ecology of creations and evidences of research, among compositions about knowledge, practices, subjectivities and technologies in familiar settings (presence) and also in new scenarios (virtual).

The articles are all different, making a categorical simplification an intricate task. However, when we look at the whole formed by the diverse articles, we find an attribute that result from the sum of all of them: multiplicity. Therefore, being part of an indivisible whole, the articles are also multiple. In fact, they are part of a science that is multiple.

Now let us seek for another attribute present in the scientific production: motion.

Knowledge - under the constructivist framework - is not seen as something static. It fluctuates and even moves into a spiral. With this oscillation movement, the production of nursing shifts between the concepts of metaparadigm (individual, health, environment and nursing) and the various characterizations of care. The same applies to the different articles contained here. However, this oscillation movement never returns to the starting point. With every new cycle it deepens, it transforms, it becomes more and more a spiral.

The scientific creation generates a combustion movement able to move knowledge from the point it is today to a new location. However, there are at least two perspectives to consider when observing this movement.

The first perspective is to look for more specific results and reflections from the particular scientific production of each article separately. Even if this vision is healthy, the viewpoint does not always give us the opportunity to look for evidence that resides in a higher plane: that we are moving collectively in building this science we denominate: Nursing Science. We know that time is short; that information available is virtually infinite and that we are certainly mortal. This equation leads us to ride in a wagon we can consider auto-sufficient. However, we are unable to measure the whole conformed by the various wagons of the train.

Since the year has just started, our invitation becomes even more extensive. The second approach we recommend is observation. Exercise debate beyond the most specific issues. Fly over the wagons and see how multiple, ample and dynamic the science produced by Nursing has been. If we initially invited our readers to be part of the exercise of seeking for central elements of the diverse articles; we wrapped up by defending the idea that the movement of identity of the production is not achieved only by parts that constitute the whole, but also by the whole comprised by its parts. We know that this is a challenge to be met; however, challenges are good proposals to begin the year.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  11 June 2010
• Date of issue
  Mar 2009