The current and future contribution of occupational therapy and occupational science to transforming the situation of forced migrants: Critical perspectives from a think tank

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the collective ideas of the occupational scientists and therapists who attended the “Refugees – Addressing Key Social Issues” think tank at the Occupational Science Conference held in Hildesheim (2017). Forced migration is recognized as a prevalent issue in today’s society. Forced migrants face many occupational challenges, which are being exacerbated by restrictive migration policies. This paper outlines the discussions held during the think tank and presents an occupational perspective of forced migrants’ needs, followed by a desired vision of what an occupationally just world would look like for forced migrants, and future directions to guide occupation-based social transformation.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational science
• Occupational therapy
• Critical perspectives
• Forced migration
• Social transformation

Acknowledgements

We thank the additional think tank participants: Dr. Anne-Le Morville, Ute Davies, Jordi Tolra (Acsar foundation) and Dr. Volker Paelke for their contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Concettina Trimboli http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2490-7876

Natalia Rivas-Quarneti http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9444-4347

Nadine Blankvoort http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2037-7887

Ina Roosen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8954-1214

Salvador Simó Algado http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0072-6296

Gail Whiteford http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6136-1844