Time and space on the hospital ward: shaping the scope of nursing practice

Abstract

Time and space are among the core building blocks of any culture (Helman 1992). Since the beginning of the modern era, philosophers and scientists have insisted that time and space are essential concepts for comprehending the world and one’s place within it (Gross 1982) and in the social sciences, the linkage of time and space has a long history (Friedland and Boden 1994; Glennie and Thrift 1996). There is, for example, a strong tradition of temporal—spatial analyses of work and the division of labour (Smith (1976) [1776]; Marx (1970) [1887]; Thompson 1967; Taylor 1975) which continues to flourish to this day (e.g. Malmberg 1995; Collinson and Collinson 1997). In medical sociology, moreover, the importance of temporal—spatial considerations in shaping the social organisation and experience of health and illness is increasingly being recognised (Davis 1956; Roth 1963; Frankenberg 1992; Zerubavel 1979a,b; Rosengren and DeVault 1963; Glaser and Strauss 1965, 1968; Strauss et al. 1985). In recent years, feminist scholars have underlined the relationship between time and gender (Davies 1989; Hochschild 1989; Adam 1995; Glucksmann 1995; Sullivan 1997) and have pointed to the consequences that this has for women’s lives. My aim, in this chapter, is to illustrate how thinking in terms of space and time can shed some light on the work role of ward-based hospital nurses.