ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how nurses' management of ignorance, as well as the management of nurses' ignorance, plays an equally important role in that respect. Foucault heavily emphasised the way scientific knowledge is at the core of government of individuals and populations. Because of the close work with individuals and communities, nurses are ideally positioned in such endeavours, and to perpetuate certain types of ignorance and knowledge. Influenza immunisation campaigns provide particularly fertile ground for an exploration of the politics of ignorance, given the coordination of efforts deployed locally, regionally, nationally and internationally over the past decade to monitor and manage influenza prevalence and transmission. Influenza research and management in the face of uncertainty is a useful example to begin exploring the multiple and conflicting ways in which presumptions of ignorance shape public policy as well as citizen behaviours. Importantly, it may constitute an attempt to sidestep the (bio)politics of ignorance and its role in everyday biological and social life.
