Resisting Technical Rationality in Mental Health Nurse Higher Education: A Duoethnography

Authors

Alec J. Grant, University of BrightonFollow
Mark A. C. Radcliffe, University of BrightonFollow

Abstract

This duoethnographic study has three aims: the first is to coherently situate our emerging duoethnographic dialogue in relation to an overview of both its parent methodology and related approaches within the narrative inquiry paradigm. Our second aim is to then enable readers to make contextual sense of our dialogue. We do so by prefacing it with a brief, focused overview of our theoretical, empirical and fiction work, and related literature, selected for the purpose of clarification. Following this, our final aim is to demonstrate in our dialogue the differences between our respective attempts as academics to work against the neoliberal ideology of technical rationality. We believe that this negatively impacts on contemporary mental health nurse higher education and thus necessitates our respective remedial contributions to this discipline. We conclude by considering the extent to which we feel we have met our aims and describing emerging implications for mental health nursing and other scholars, internationally

Keywords

Duoethnography, Neoliberal Higher Education, Technical Rationality, Ideology, Null Curriculum, Mental Health Education

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Alec Grant is Reader in Narrative Mental Health in the University of Brighton, UK. He contributes to narrative social and human science as a qualitative researcher, teacher, supervisor and mentor, using dialogical narrative methodologies in mental health-related inquiry. His published qualitative research is underpinned by critical reflexivity in the service of human emancipation and social justice. In this context, he also challenges established epistemological assumptions, orthodoxies and related representational practices, around what can and should be known, and how it is known. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: Alec J. Grant at, School of Health and Social Science, University of Brighton, Robert Dodd Building (RD105), 49 Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7UR, United Kingdom; E-mail: A.Grant@brighton.ac.uk

Dr. Mark Radcliffe is a Senior Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Brighton, UK. He is an educationalist and academic whose research interests are around phenomenology and the politics of knowledge. He is also a novelist with an interest in how art and the humanities can contribute to education and health narratives. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: Mark A. C. Radcliffe at, School of Health and Social Science, University of Brighton, Westlain House,

Publication Date

6-15-2015

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2157

Recommended APA Citation

Grant, A. J., & Radcliffe, M. A. (2015). Resisting Technical Rationality in Mental Health Nurse Higher Education: A Duoethnography. The Qualitative Report, 20(6), 815-825. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2157