Nursing Today? Care as a Scientific-Political Act

Abstract

Contemporary nursing has achieved significant consolidation as a scientific discipline and a caring
profession. Yet this consolidation does not by itself resolve a deeper question: what does autonomy
mean when health problems, institutions, and caring practices are increasingly mediated by technologies, protocols, indicators, ¿and knowledge models produced in diverse contexts? This editorial proposes understanding nursing autonomy not merely as professional independence, but as the capacity to formulate its own questions, produce knowledge, exercise judgment, and participate in decisions affecting care.

Epistemic vigilance makes it possible to critically examine knowledge presented as universal and to historically marginalized forms of knowledge. Care thus acquires a scientific-political dimension: scientific because it requires disciplinary knowledge and professional judgment; political because it is connected to dignity, vulnerability, rights, and the social conditions in which life unfolds. Finally, the editorial argues that the contemporary challenge is not to reject technology or evidence, but to prevent them from determining by themselves what may be recognized as care.