I processi incorpati di costruzione della conoscenza nelle pratiche di cura

In educational contexts, the body has been traditionally marginalized or rejected as a source of knowledge. In the last decades, pedagogical literature has increasingly considered the role that the teacher’s body has in planning and implementing teaching, challenging dominant ideologies and epis-temologies that tell us our minds are the primary sources of learning. Conversely, a pedagogy of em-bodiment makes the body central in our knowing (educational practices) and being (a teacher). Similarly, literature from the caring professions has revealed very receptive toward issues related to embodied knowledge, that is to say the knowledge that the body owns, which is frequently tacit. Since many years, nurses have explored the role of body in the processes of knowledge building, as well as the role of the student’s body, and even the patient’s body, in knowing the illness. In this paper we report some reflections and experiences concerning embodied knowledge in the nursing practice, highlighting that embodied knowledge, even if tacit, has a pivotal role when caring for sick people.