Controversies and debates around occupational therapy: an analysis of bibliographic productions in South America (2010-2018)

Abstract

Considering that occupational therapy practices act in spaces of daily life where there is a plurality of existences, it is imperative to build heterogeneous practices from the historical-social contexts that produce them. In South America, debates have emerged that challenge the prevailing north-Eurocentric and Anglocentric discourse due to its claim to universality, objectivity, and neutrality, bringing with its positivist scientific reasoning and dualistic logic. This article aims to present seven debates identified in some of the written productions of Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile between 2010-2018, both in older occupational therapy journals in the region and in books of collective authorships that discuss occupational therapy. A mapping of controversies is carried out through a documentary review and analysis of 133 journal articles and 53 book chapters. The issues they discuss are related to occupational therapy practices around the social; communities and territories; human rights; knowledge and knowledge production; the critical; gender and feminisms; and Latin America and the global south. It is possible to conclude that each debate condenses different historical moments, from which plural and unfinished forms of occupational therapy are produced that make visible controversial issues that have given them richness and heterogeneity, allowing to stress the asymmetries of power and give political relevance to the practices that are produced from South America for the local-global context.