ABSTRACT
The social world is created by human beings, but in the process of this creation, or social construction, the world develops a thing-like status. This means that the world is always, to a greater or lesser extent, external to us as individuals or groups. We interact with that world but it is not entirely congruent with us as human beings. This disjuncture has been analysed by social theorists in a variety of ways: Durkheim’s anomie, Marx’s alienation and Bourdieu’s hysteresis. These concepts have highlighted important problems and issues in the social world that have not been employed in any depth in the nursing literature. I will suggest that they can assist nurses in making sense of their research and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the social world of health care.
