Editorial: Special Issue on Experiencing Occupation

An abiding topic in occupational science is people’s experience of what they are doing. The literature to date vividly speaks to experiences of entering a state of flow, being creative and finding personal meaning. The subjective experience of occupation is embodied, sensory, spiritual, shaped by gender, and made all the richer when shared with family. Doing something can change our subjective experience of ourselves, making us feel happier and giving a sense of achievement. People’s experiences of occupation are also described in more existential terms, as providing a sense of coherence, meaning and balance or its opposite: a life too rushed, lacking in meaning, restricted by circumstances. Experiencing occupation can transform us, make us whole, and bind us to our community, but the experience is altered by impairment, retirement, shift work, ageing, emigrating or becoming a refugee. Our particular experience of occupation, over time, shapes our sense of self, our identity. To make sense of all this complexity, occupational experiences have been theorised as dynamic and transactional.

This special issue of the Journal of Occupational Science presents a rich array of perspectives on the experience of occupation. In particular, it throws light on the diverse research traditions employed to reveal different facets of the human experience of doing. Qualitative descriptive methods were chosen to test the utility of Matuska and Christiansen’s Life Balance Model to explain how Religious Sisters of Mercy experience their lives (Myers, Zak, Roche, Bender, Marquardt, & Fisher, 2016). One dimension in particular, creating meaning and a positive personal identity, reflected the unique elements of the Sisters’ lives; the time spent in prayer and reflection, living according to their vows, and being active in their religious community. Qualitative descriptive methods were also selected for an exploratory study of adolescents’ participation in social media (Kennedy & Lynch, 2016). The study showed social media to be sites where relationships and connections are built and identity constructed, with their own norms and culture but, like any other social space, subject to overuse and unsociable behaviour.

Autoethnography was the methodology of choice for Pollard and Carver’s (2016) investigation of the time they spend building model trains and planes. Acknowledging its somewhat hidden nature as an occupation carried forward from childhood, the authors also position modelling as a product of the current socioeconomic and technological environment. Straussian grounded theory, which like other variants of grounded theory has its theoretical roots in symbolic interactionism, was employed to generate a theory of Regaining control: A journey of valuing self, which explains the occupational choices of Korean immigrants to New Zealand (Kim & Hocking, 2016). Also using a constructivist approach to grounded theory, which acknowledges that both data and analysis are social constructions, Borges da Costa and Cox (2016) studied the experience of circle dancing, an ancient occupation that can be found in most cultural traditions.

Exploring more challenging experiences of occupation, Bryson-Campbell, Shaw, O’Brien, and Holmes (2016) used objectivist grounded theory to describe the transformation of occupational identity of brain injury survivors as they re-engage in occupation, make new occupational choices and reflect on their changed level of competence. Identity issues also feature in VanderKaay’s (2016) discourse analysis of on-line blogs written by mothers of children with food allergy. The mothers’ representations of mothering occupations point to profound impacts of catering to a child’s food restrictions on women’s identity as a mother. Also concerned with the interplay between parents and children, Hartman, Mandich, Magalhães, and Polgar (2016) completed a narrative study to develop an occupational perspective of young adults’ experience of changed occupational patterns and opportunities after parental divorce or separation. Finally Jennings and Cronin-Davis (2016) selected an interpretive phenomenological analysis to get to the essence of an occupation with detrimental health effects: binge drinking.

Taking a more theoretical approach, Cogan (2016) proposes the merits of characterising occupational transitions as movement between figured worlds. Using the reintegration of military personnel into family and community life as an example, she examines the impact of moving between socially constructed worlds where very different people and occupations support radically different identities. Complementing the qualitative methods that typify occupational science research, Ikiugu, Hoyme, Mueller and Reinke (2016) used brain scans and experience sampling methods to test the hypothesis that meaningful occupations are healing. Completing this issue, Atler, Eakman and Orsi (2016) report the results of using multiple regression models to further test the validity of the PPRP; the Daily Experiences of Pleasure, Productivity, and Restoration Profile.

ORCID

Clare Hocking http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0364-5157