Towards a Notion of Relational Sacrifices: Nursing During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Wuhan

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examine the relationship between nursing and sacrifice in the context of Shanghai-based nurses volunteering to treat COVID-19 patients in Wuhan during the pandemic in 2019 and 2020. In the paper, we explore the relationship between metaphors, such as ‘the war on COVID’ with the notion of sacrifice among our participants. The contribution that this article makes is to examine the lived experiences of the sacrifices made by individual nurses in a wider ‘relational’ framework. This relational framework examines, not just the sacrifices of the nurses but also the sacrifices made by their families during their service in Wuhan. As such, the article explores not only the relationship (or conflict) between self-love, self-prolonging and self-preservation and ‘self-sacrifice’ in the moral philosophical tradition of Kant – through the lived experiences of our participants – we extend sacrifice and the sacrificial beyond the individual (nurse) to examine the relational and familial lived experiences of the sacrifice of the nurses and their families in the context of their nursing on the COVID-19 wards in Wuhan.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational sacrifice
• China
• COVID-19
• nursing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shaoying Zhang

Dr Shaoying Zhang, FRSA, is a professor in sociology at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. He has published two books entitled Social Policies and Ethnic Conflict in China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and China’s Ethical Revolution – Regaining Legitimacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has published articles in such journals as The Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Rural Studies, Urban Studies, Economy and Society, Prison Journal, Dreaming, Families, Relationships and Societies and Citizenship Studies, among others. He is currently writing a book about the politics of nursing power and its relation to political legitimacy.

Derek McGhee

Derek McGhee is a professor of Sociology, FRSA, FAcSS and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling UK. His research areas include governance, citizenship and migration. He has published four sole-authored books and two co-authored books with Dr Shaoying Zhang.