Spirituality and Self-Reclamation: A Response to Nursing on the Margins of the Profession

Abstract

This paper focuses on spirituality and religious faith as a significant resource in the lives of Black nurses in a Nova Scotia, Canada. It argues that as a valuable source of self-identity and meaning-making, spirituality merits serious consideration in nursing research. This treatment of the subject brings together current attention to the work-life experiences of minority nurses in Canada’s healthcare system and new interest in spirituality as inherent to nursing care. Validating the spiritual strength and sensitivity expressed by the Black nurses would both allow the nurses to be wholly themselves as nurses, and make that strength and sensitivity available to a healthcare system that has need of them. It might be possible to bring both minority group nurses and spirituality back from the margins of the nursing profession,