Nursing inquiry
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The cornerstone of contemporary nursing practice is the provision of individualised nursing care. Sustaining and nourishing the stream of research frameworks that inform individualised care are the findings from qualitative research. ⋯ Instead, using qualia as a touchstone for the possibilities of understanding and representing experience, we trace the 'designative' and 'expressive' distinction to language in order to raise critical questions concerning both these assumptions and common practices within qualitative research. Following the 'expressive' account of language, we foreground in particular the hermeneutic work of Gadamer through which we explore the possibilities for a qualitative research approach that would better seek the mot juste of individual experience and illuminate qualia in order to better inform genuinely individualised care.