Contributor: Jerome Visperas Cleofas
In my recent paper, “Building a Pluriverse of Nursologies: A Paradigm for Decolonial Theory and Knowledge Development in Nursing,” published in Nursing Philosophy (Cleofas, 2024), I explored how nursing has long been shaped by coloniality and epistemic violence. I also introduced a “decolonial-pluriversal” paradigm aimed at liberating nursing from these colonial entanglements.
Like many other allied health disciplines, nursing has experienced what is known as the decolonial turn. Decoloniality critiques the continued influence of colonial structures on knowledge production. It challenges the dominance of Western and Global Northern (W&GN) logics that have historically excluded indigenous and marginalized perspectives (Mignolo, 2011). In healthcare, this influence has resulted in a legacy of epistemic violence, where the knowledge and healing practices of peoples from former colonies or marginalized communities were erased or delegitimized in favor of W&GN models. Nursing, shaped by imperialist values, has served colonial agendas, and today continues to reflect hierarchical systems of knowledge. This is especially evident in mainstream discursive practices such as evidence-based nursing, the nursing care process, the nursing holarchy, and the metaparadigm of nursing (see McGibbon et al., 2014).
The nursing metaparadigm (see Fawcett, 1984; Fawcett, 2023), which includes core concepts like person, health, environment, and nursing, exemplifies what decolonial scholars call a pyramidal epistemology, due to its universalizing tendencies to explain phenomena in the discipline. Onto-epistemological orientations that do not align with the metaparadigm are often excluded, perpetuating colonial logics within nursing education and practice. For this reason, decolonial thinkers argue that the dominance of W&GN-centric theories and models must be decentered and dismantled to allow for more inclusive, context-sensitive nursing practices.
A shift toward pluriversality can help in countering hegemonic nursing. Pluriversality embraces the coexistence of multiple worldviews and knowledge systems, rejecting the idea that W&GN knowledge should dominate healthcare practices globally (see Mignolo, 2018). It has two core missions: first, to decenter and dismantle W&GN-centric nursology, and second, to relink and revitalize knowledge systems from epistemologically disadvantaged communities within the global nursing landscape. By doing so, pluriversality creates a more equitable knowledge economy within the discipline, fostering practices that are relevant to diverse cultural, social, and historical contexts.
The “Pluriverse of Nursologies” (PoN) paradigm arises from this approach. It recognizes that nursing is not a monolithic discipline but rather a dynamic, plural field shaped by varying perspectives. The plural form, “nursologies,” acknowledges the diversity of knowledge systems that describe and explain the practice of nursing, which encompasses being, doing, becoming, and theorizing in nursing in different sociocultural, geopolitical, and historical contexts. This solidarity-based epistemology aims to build an ecology of nursologies that values cooperation and mutual respect among diverse knowledge systems, as opposed to the traditional hierarchical structure of nursing knowledge.
The future of nursing lies in embracing this pluriversal approach, which promotes inclusivity, adaptability, and cultural humility. The Pluriverse of Nursologies (PoN) offers a guiding framework for developing nursing practices that reflect the complexities of human experience. By breaking away from the colonial legacies that have shaped the field, nursing can evolve into a discipline rooted in justice, respect, and solidarity, offering more effective and inclusive care for diverse populations worldwide.
About Jerome Visperas Cleofas
Jerome Cleofas (he/they) is a queer registered nurse, sociologist, and health social science scholar from the Global South, specifically the Philippines. His exposure to English-based education from basic to post-graduate education, experience in community health settings and nursing education for more than a decade, and collaboration with allied health and social science scholars have afforded him the capacity to use various critical lenses (e.g., gender, conflict, decoloniality) in analyzing intersecting structures of oppression influencing health and well-being outcomes of vulnerable populations
References
Cleofas, J. V. (2024). Building a Pluriverse of Nursologies: A paradigm for decolonial theory and knowledge development in nursing. Nursing Philosophy, 25(4), e12497. https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12497
Fawcett, J. (1984). The metaparadigm of nursing: Present status and future refinements. Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 16(3), 84–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.1984.tb01393.x
Fawcett, J. (2023). Thoughts about the metaparadigm of nursing: Contemporary status and recommendations for evolution. Nursing Science Quarterly, 36(3), 303–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/08943184231169770
McGibbon, E., Mulaudzi, F. M., Didham, P., Barton, S., & Sochan, A. (2014). Toward decolonizing nursing: The colonization of nursing and strategies for increasing the counter‐narrative. Nursing Inquiry, 21(3), 179–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12042
Mignolo, W. D. (2011). Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience. Postcolonial Studies, 14(3), 273–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2011.613105
Mignolo, W. D. (2018). Foreword: On pluriversality and multipolarity. In B. Reiter (Ed.), Constructing the Pluriverse: The Geopolitics of Knowledge. Duke University Press.
Thank you for your thoughtful paper – I had read the full paper you refer to earlier. As I’m reading and thinking, it occurs to me that perhaps what you’re referring to as “nursologies” are what used to be called “general” or “grand” theories of nursing, although in the day, there was much discussion of how these thought-leads-to-action systems were to be categorized (grand or general nursing theories, nursing conceptual systems, nursing theoretical frameworks, etc). I think we do have a good beginning range of these nursing knowledge systems. As nursing faculties begin to realize that nursing is not only a professional practice in support of personhood, it is also a discipline of knowledge, they will begin to introduce that idea (knowledge created for practice – practice grounded in a knowledge structure), more “nursologies” will appear. At the moment, I am aware of two very valuable nursologies that haven’t yet made it into the “big nursing theory books” – that of my dear deceased friend Lida Nikfarid (see some of her work on the nursology.net site), an evolving theory of nursing for and of Iranian nursing, as well as the recently published and widely available theory of and for Philippine nursing advanced by my kapwa, Rudolf Cymorr Kirby P. Martinez. In addition, a number of years ago, Hong Kong scholar Samantha Pang led a study with the Chinese Nurses Association that resulted in what I think was termed a Philosophy of Chinese Nursing, the foundation of a uniquely Chinese general theory of nursing. And I am confident there are other nursologies from around the world of which I am unaware.
I don’t want this to become too long, but do think it useful to mention that a study of the history of nursing scholarship will remind us that at one point, there was much focus among nurse theoreticians on finding/articulating a “unified theory of nursing”, following the lead of the discipline of physics… the idea of a closed or single set of nursing metaparadigm concepts evolved during this time although perhaps not as a direct response to the call for a unified theory. Fortunately, we continue to grow as a discipline. Over the lifetime of my career, I can see a shifting back and forth, from zeroing in focus to a broadening perspective – alternating visions that are, in my opinion, necessary and useful.
Thank you, Savina, for reading the full paper and your insightful sharing! I am glad to hear that there have been documented attempts to formalize nursologies to accommodate knowledge systems and epistemic resources from the margins of the current global knowledge economy of nursing. Of course, I know my colleague, fellow countryman, and kapwa Martinez’ work. (My paper got published before his theory did; if it were the other way around, I would have of course cited him =). I would love to be able to have the documents of Nikfarid and Pang’s work, as I would like to write more about them in my future decolonial/universal musings for nursing!
Pingback: Doing Nursing Without Understanding Nursing: Why Nursing Theories such as NurCaM Matters | Nursology