Enacting the Critical Potential of Occupational Science: Problematizing the ‘Individualizing of Occupation’

Abstract

Over the past decade, many occupational science scholars have emphasized the critical potential of occupational science; that is, its capacity to generate knowledge to inform practices that work against occupational inequities. Within this lecture, previously articulated concerns regarding the ‘individualizing of occupation’ within occupational science are politicized, by placing them within the broader ‘individualizing of the social’ that is associated with neoliberalism and related socio-political transformations. This broader ‘individualizing of the social’, which has involved configuring various social problematics as individual concerns and responsibilities within an array of social policies, discourses and practices, obscures the economic, political and other social factors that shape inequities in possibilities for work, retirement, education, leisure and other occupations. Working against such inequities requires problematizing the ‘individualizing of occupation’, within and outside of occupational science, and situating occupation within economic, political and other types of social forces. Drawing upon on-going research addressing the contemporary re-construction of retirement and later life work, I argue that critically examining how occupational possibilities are constructed in ways that align with broader socio-political forces, as well as how they are actively negotiated by individuals and collectives, provides a valuable way forward in enacting the critical potential of occupational science.

Keywords:

• Socio-political forces
• Neoliberalism
• Occupational inequities
• Retirement

Acknowledgments

Given that this paper was delivered as the Canadian Society of Occupational Scientists’ Townsend and Polatajko 2012 lecture, I express appreciation to my nominators and CSOS for this opportunity to share my work. I also wish to acknowledge the many crucial ways that both Drs. Helene Polatajko and Elizabeth Townsend have mentored me and fostered my occupational possibilities as an occupational scientist. I express my thanks to the individuals who openly shared their stories of preparing for and being in retirement, and the various individuals – including Suzanne Huot, Silke Dennhardt, Kathy Ellis, and Daniel Molke – who contributed to this program of research while doctoral students. Thanks are also extended to Drs. Susan Forwell and Lynn Shaw who provided feedback on this paper.