Face attack and patients’ response strategies in a Kenyan hospital
Abstract
Social power can be exercised by face attack where power differentials are
sufficiently great and significant retaliation or sanctions are unlikely. Such
exercise of social power is common in military contexts. It is not commonly
observed in hospital settings yet some nurses in Kenya’s public hospitals
routinely attack the face of their patients. Using data from interactions
observed in a provincial hospital, it is illustrated how nurses initiate conflict
and how patients counter the face-attackingmoves. The investigation shows
that nurses use a high frequency of utterances that violate the dignity of
patientswhile the latter prefer conflict avoidance strategies.Nurses generally
make no attempt to mitigate the impact of most of their face-threatening
utterances while patients demonstrate awareness of the need to preserve
mutual face and reclaim dignity. Three strategies used by patients to reclaim
dignity – namely silence, retaliatory face damage and face repair – are
illustrated.
URI
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2010.00449.x/asset/j.1467-9841.2010.00449.x.pdf?v=1&t=hxvyltlv&s=887cfc0580caf2ef1058d5502268569653cae74bhttp://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/10533