The Dr Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture 2018: Occupational stories from a global city

Abstract

This paper aims to set out the potential for the global occupational therapy profession to exchange knowledge for social transformation practice. It identifies the profession's concern with narratives as a vehicle for a socially critical approach to occupation, which can be used to negotiate intervention and action. Drawing on examples from literature, history, and service users, the paper suggests that narrative provides a means for relating the value of occupation beyond professional boundaries to capture popular imagination and demand for the profession. Examples are given of the critical discussion of the everyday impact of health inequity, and in addressing diversity both in the profession and engaging service users. Conclusion: The occupational therapy is a global network with the population of a city, and thus represents a community which can be a vibrant voice for social transformation through occupation through a reciprocal exchange of narrative. This is a collective and dialogical process which can draw on the experiences of both southern and northern hemispheres.

Developing understandings of occupational (in)justice with occupational therapy students in a transnational project

“…The project through the 'virtual classroom' developed projects that were supported by reliable digital platforms and offered opportunities to connect the classrooms transnationally. Staff and students learned about these technologies and, using them, supported learning that drew on authentic, serviced based and international pedagogies to allow students to learn from and with one another to examine the global challenges of marginalised groups who experience occupational injustice and find 'glocal' (combing global and local considerations) solutions (Pollard, 2018). Healthcare students will work in a glocalised world (Garcia-Ruiz, 2016) and so it is imperative that they have the opportunities to examine the opportunities and trials that may accompany this.…”

“…One aim of this experience was to enhance students' abilities to recognise, understand and appreciate differing cultural perspectives and then apply occupational science principles in service of occupational justice (Leask, 2015). This will allow graduates to work effectively with occupational injustices within their own diverse communities, whilst also offering opportunities to work across borders using occupation to aid social transformation to solve global and local occupational injustice challenges (Pollard, 2018).…”

Editorial

“…The individual woollen squares were taken away from RCOT 2018 and were transformed into a Knit for Peace blanket by Dr Clare Taylor – a fitting gesture, I felt, of our collective time together. Other expressions of our citizenship of “the global city of occupational therapists” (Pollard, 2018, p. 492) included a “Twitter Wall” where people added their profile details and a “Pledge Tree” where delegates hung written promises inspired by the conference.…”