Editorial

Occupation is embedded in the everyday lives of individuals, as well as the everyday life of societies. This embeddedness can sometimes mean that humans, at individual to collective levels, go about doing occupations without ever realizing the complexity of human doing (Dickie, 2014). Scholarship in occupational science has increasingly both revealed the complexity of occupation at individual to societal levels, and also been challenged to grasp such complexity.

One key way that several articles within this issue engage with the complexity of occupation is through focusing on transitions. Much scholarship in occupational science has focused on transitions, that is, processes of change; for example, transitions connected to the life course, changes in bodily capacities, and shifts in space and place (Crider, Calder, Bunting, & Forwell, 2015). Articles in this issue address transitions of university students (Keptner, 2019; Murphy & Stevenson, 2019), later life workers (Hovbrandt, Carlsson, Nilsson, Albin, & Håkansson, 2019; Voss et al., 2019), refugees and asylum seekers (Morville & Jessen-Winge, 2019; Raanass, Aase, & Huot, 2019), and persons who are incorporating assistive technologies into their lives (Larsen, Hounsgaard, Brandt, & Kristensen, 2019; Steel, 2019). These articles demonstrate that in times of transition the taken-for-granted nature of occupations can be fractured; occupations may be challenged, reconfigured, discovered, and mobilized as transitions are navigated across time and place. Across these articles, various ways the occupations of individuals and collectives are situated in contextual features, ranging from their immediate social environments to geopolitical phenomena, are addressed. In addition, drawing upon an occupational perspective, these articles highlight the centrality of occupation in the negotiation of transitions, particularly in relation to issues of identity, belonging, and becoming.

A second approach to unpacking the complexity of occupation taken up in this issue involves studying occupations within a bounded place. Two articles address occupation within a residential setting (Demers & Miller, 2019; Murphy & Sheil, 2019). These articles show that focusing on a specific place, and how occupations are organized, enacted and experienced in that place, can generate insights with respect to the situated nature of occupation and issues of power, such as the power relations through which occupations are decided upon and the power of occupation to transform experiences of place.

An additional article by Haywood and Lawlor (2019) addresses the utility of employing methodologies that integrate multiple perspectives to understand lived experiences of occupation. The final article, by Townsend and Hocking (2019) invites submissions to a special section of the journal, specifically, ‘Learning and Knowing Occupation’. This invitation extends the original vision of the ‘Teaching Occupation’ section based on an enhanced articulation of the multi-faceted ways occupation is learned and known within and outside educational contexts.

Occupation and Transitions

In the first of two articles addressing university students, Keptner (2019) examines the relationship between occupational performance, measured using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, and student adaptation, measured using the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire. Placing this study within a broader context in which students in the United States are experiencing increasing difficulty transitioning to and completing university level education, Keptner adds an occupational perspective to existing research on adjustment to university that has often used a psychological lens. Within this cross-sectional survey study conducted at an urban-based university in the United States, Keptner finds that satisfaction with performance in occupations is significantly correlated with adjustment to university. Building from this promising finding, Keptner outlines directions for future research employing an occupational lens to issues of transition amongst university students that can inform educational practices, systems, and policies.

Using a narrative approach, Murphy and Stevenson (2019) explore the educational journeys of nine Masters level students who have dyslexia. Taking a strengths-based approach through engagement with students who have negotiated the complex challenges that can shape educational under-attainment for students with dyslexia, these authors analyse the students’ narratives in relation to influences on occupational potential and the process of shaping possible selves. The innovative interpretation and presentation of the findings in terms of Acts and Scenes, based in performance ethnography, enables these authors to address complex transactions amongst personal and social elements within the students’ educational journeys. In addition, the transformational nature of occupation and its centrality in negotiating identity, contextual conditions, and hegemonic practices come to the fore.

Moving to another part of the life course, Voss, Merryman, Crabtree, Subasic, Wadsworth and Hung (2019) and Hovbrandt, Carlsson, Nilsson, Albin and Håkansson (2019) address later life workers. Both of these articles are situated within a larger socio-political transition towards the policy promotion of extended work lives, tied to concerns regarding the sustainability of welfare and pension systems given population aging. These articles address timely questions related to differential possibilities for extended work life as well its implications for occupational lives of aging persons. Voss and colleagues (2019) address the problematic of later life unemployment. Informed by a phenomenological approach, these authors explore how 24 individuals who had experienced later life unemployment conveyed their work and retirement transitions. Findings reveal various ways that later life unemployment was experienced, including as a time of struggle, freedom, transition, and resilience. As well, ways later life unemployment blurs the line between unemployment and retirement and can create economic challenges are addressed. These findings highlight the need to consider not just extended work life, but the factors producing later life unemployment and its implications for negotiating later life transitions.

Acknowledging the socio-political forces differentially shaping possibilities for extended work life, Hovbrandt and colleagues (2019) highlight how extending research on occupational balance to workers aged 65 and older can inform health and workplace practices aimed at supporting sustainable extended work lives. Using focus groups and qualitative interviews, they explore experiences of occupational balance with a sample 26 older workers in Sweden. Findings mapped onto the indicators of occupational balance previously outlined by Eklund and colleagues, with participants describing how they modified occupational patterns to achieve a harmonious mix of occupations aligned with values and personal meaning and congruent with skills and abilities. In addition, the findings highlight the centrality of good working conditions to the achievement of a sustainable extended work life.

Also addressing a contemporary socio-political transition of global relevance, two articles in this issue are situated within the increasing movement of forced migrants into Europe. Both articles address the challenging and prolonged transitions, related to place, occupation, and identity, navigated by forced migrants, and ways that environments and occupations can be designed and mobilized to enhance social connectedness. Morville and Jessen-Winge (2019) demonstrate that generating knowledge with asylum seekers, in this case, an individual asylum seeker living in a Danish asylum centre, can lead to innovative ideas for enhancing social inclusion. Based on data generated through interviews and drawing on material this asylum seeker had written, findings deepen understanding of the dynamics of occupational deprivation in an asylum centre and point to ways forward in creating more inclusive, occupationally just environments for asylum seekers.

The second article addresses how occupation can be a means for refugees to counter marginalization. In their qualitative study, Raanaas, Aase and Huot (2019) explore the significance of being part of a multicultural amateur choir for five persons with a refugee background in Norway. Within the midst of negotiating challenges related to structural and social conditions, participating in the choir was experienced as a collective occupation that supported a sense of belonging, the building of social capital, the negotiation of identity, and the maintenance and development of skills. As such, this article contributes to a growing body of literature highlighting the transformative potential of occupational engagement.

The final two articles frame the incorporation of assistive technology as a transition. Larsen, Hounsgaard, Brant and Kristensen (2019) focus on the process involved in incorporating assistive technology into occupations. Using repeated interviews and participant observations with eight older adults over a period of 19 months, they depict a process of ‘becoming acquainted’ with assistive technology through using it in various occupations within different contexts. They depict how this process of doing with technology positively influenced older adults’ being, enabled belonging, and facilitated becoming a ‘user of assistive technology’. These authors outline how the application of an occupational perspective generated new insights into the process of accepting assistive technology, and call for further research on how older adults’ desired images of their ‘occupational self’ influences acceptance.

Steel (2019) also addresses the experience of being and becoming an assistive technology user, with a particular focus on countering simplistic notions of individual consumer choice embedded in Australian policies. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with an assistive technology user and a service provider, the findings illustrate how assistive technology provision and incorporation is an on-going, interactive process of making decisions, negotiating options, and taking risks, rather than an individualized consumer choice. Given the complex, dynamic nature of this process, Steel points to the need for policies and services to be reconfigured in ways that address the conditions for realizing choice.

Occupations in Bounded Places

Also addressing the transformative power of occupational engagement, Demecs and Miller (2019) provide a thorough longitudinal exploration of a 6 month participatory tapestry project within the context of a residential aged care facility. Combining researcher field notes and photos, observations and informal conversations with multiple types of actors, and post-project qualitative interviews with 3 resident participants, this article conveys the process of the tapestry project, ways that residents contributed to the co-design of the tapestry, and the residents’ diverse ways of participating in the project. The introduction of this novel, creative occupation is shown to both foster anticipation amongst residents, and facilitate connections with the past, to others, and to the creative self. Within the context of residential aged care, in which there may be an emphasis on staff selected occupations, this study displays the diverse benefits that can be achieved through inserting a creative occupation with opportunities for residents to exert power through co-design and self-directed participation over time.

Situated within another type of bounded place, specifically, a residential mental health facility, Kearns Murphy and Sheil (2019) explicitly focus on the distribution of power and its implications for occupational injustice. Using a case study approach, they explore the experience of engaging in occupations within a specific residential mental health facility, drawing upon the perspectives of residents, their family members and staff. Their findings illustrate experiences of various forms of occupational injustices related to restrictions in occupational engagement, limited opportunities for purposeful and productive occupations, and restrictive institutional rules and practices. These authors conclude that the distribution of power within residential facilities is a key challenge to enacting occupational justice, and propose the need for changes in policies, models of practice, and staff-resident interactions to redistribute power to residents.

Expanding Methodological and Teaching/Learning Approaches

The final two articles address expansions, with Haywood and Lawlor (2019) proposing a methodological expansion and Townsend and Hocking (2019) proposing an expanded way of thinking and writing about learning and knowing occupation. Haywood and Lawlor (2019) propose that integrating data from the perspectives of multiple actors who are sharing experiences or co-ordinating actions can heighten understanding of various aspects of the nature of experiences. They illustrate the thick, situational, and complex understandings of occupation that can be achieved by integrating multiple perspectives through sharing results from a study of caregiving as an occupation that conducted separate interviews and observations with young adults with spinal cord injuries and their nominated caregivers. Haywood and Lawlor acknowledge the analytical challenges that accompany integrating multiple perspectives, but convincingly display how such integration can challenge researcher assumptions and enable insights into the negotiated nature of occupations.

Townsend and Hocking (2019) expand the vision of the ‘Teaching Occupation’ section of the Journal of Occupational Science originally launched in 2016, inviting submissions to a renamed ‘Learning and Knowing Occupation’ section. They invite submissions that “focus on one or a combination of topics related to learning occupation, teaching occupation, and cultural, gendered, or other ways of knowing occupation based on particular ontologies and epistemic traditions” (p. 140). The intended breadth of the section, as well as questions to stimulate submissions, is illustrated within a table providing example questions related to ‘educational methods and strategies’, ‘ontological and epistemological foundations’, and ‘teaching to engage others in knowing occupation and occupational science’. As articulated by Townsend and Hocking, expanding the dialogue about how various types of people learn about and know occupation is important to heighten awareness of occupation and occupational science, build new partnerships, and inform efforts to enhance the occupational literacy and potential of diverse learners.

ORCID

Debbie Laliberte Rudman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5486-8994