Reconceptualizing vulnerability: deconstruction and reconstruction as a postmodern feminist analytical research method

Nursing research informed by postmodern feminist perspectives has prompted many debates in recent times. While this is so, nurse researchers who have been tempted to break new ground have had few examples of appropriate analytical methods for a research design informed by the above perspectives. This article presents a deconstructive/reconstructive secondary analysis of a postmodern feminist ethnography in order to provide an analytical exemplar. In doing so, previous notions of vulnerability as a negative state have been challenged and reconstructed.