ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the concept of ignorance considered and perceived in current academic and lay discourses provides little ground to its analysis and its effects. The chapter explores the efforts to silence knowledge development in some key areas of human life, such maintenance of ignorance in specific areas, becomes all the more justified when it is discursively constructed as protecting or promoting 'good science' as opposed to 'pseudo-science'. Science is meant to produce facts, proof, certainty, confirmation and assurance. In order to help care recipients and health professionals navigate this complex process, various tools have been proposed, from clinical guidelines to decision aids. Now it turn to situations in healthcare work where such comforts are destabilised and emotions are acknowledged as central to the twin aspects of ignorance and knowledge. Nurses and other healthcare professionals regularly encounter patients who carefully control how they present aspects of themselves, and require caregivers to do the same.
