Social problems, from poverty to drug addiction, gang violence and human displacement create real life, occupational problems. Thinking broadly about occupations, children raised in poverty relinquish hope of participating in sports, completing higher education, or obtaining sustainable employment. Addicts organise their daily occupations around accessing and using drugs. Gang members engage in violent occupations to gain status and protect the gang’s territory. Immigrants have to navigate challenges to integration in their host country in occupational arenas of work, childrearing, managing health and others. In the same times and places, they need to find ways to preserve occupations associated with their home country’s socio-cultural ways of doing and being.
Social agencies struggle to assist people to secure decent work, a home in which to conduct their daily occupations, and nutritious food to cook for their family. People establish community gardens and design urban spaces, where neighbours come to do occupations together.
Occupational science is an emerging discipline with research interests in social problems (economic, political, cultural and influences of race, gender and more) that affect and are produced through human occupation, broadly defined as all the things humans do, not limited to work. Occupations are defined and valued differently in diverse contexts. The discipline supports social justice for all, with concerns for deprivation and marginalization in daily occupations—i.e., occupational injustice and threats to occupational rights—impacting what people actually do in everyday life, and how daily life occupations are shaped by and shape social conditions.
Authors from any field are welcome to submit to the Journal of Occupational Science, expressing diverse perspectives. This interdisciplinary journal has provided a space for over 2 decades for research focused on human occupation, with an increasing emphasis on social problems and justice. Research findings, review articles, scholarly discussions, and philosophical and historical analysis are welcome.
Guest Editors: Dr. Rudman, Dr. Nayar, Dr. Simaan
Web address: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rocc20/current
Deadline for submissions: 1 November 2019
