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nurses providing mental healthcare are starkly highlighted in the ‘space[s] between the actors and positions’ thereby facilitating ‘fresh analysis’ (Clarke, 2005, p. 127). When constructing positional maps a researcher seeks, by analysing the data, contested issues within the situation of inquiry. Different positions (some polarised) are arrayed on a dimensionally two axis map. The two main axes allows for an infinite of positions within the positional map. While a researcher may attempt to arrange the axes in terms of ‘more versus less’, ‘important versus less important’ and’ ‘stronger versus weaker’ alternative means of articulating the axes could evolve from ‘analytic fracturing’ (Clarke, 2005); ‘basic grounded theory coding and situational and social worlds/ arenas mapping—opens up data for positional analyses’ (p. 126). The process of coding enables a researcher to identify and ‘name the different positions held down in the data’ (p. 126). A study will likely produce a number of different positional maps is dependent on how many contentious issues there are within the field of inquiry. There is no set number nor do all positional maps survive the rigorous process of analysis during the study’s journey. A researcher has to decide the positional maps which make it to the final analysis but yet this is not their sole aim. An important aspect of doing positional maps ‘is that they allow the researcher to see possible positions that are not taken in the data, positions that remain unarticulated’ (Clarke, 2005, p. 136). Absence of positions should result in further worthwhile data collection or be noted in memos. ‘The presence and/or absence of articulations of particular positions in various sites is itself information that aids in the analysis and in situating research more broadly’ (p. 136). Creating positional maps is an intellectually and challenging exercise which is not simply following an articulated defined/set procedural task. It requires a depth of