Meeting in diversity – Occupation as common ground: Occupational science perspectives from and for Europe

This special issue introduces papers based on presentations at the Fourth Occupational Science Europe (OSE) conference, held in Hildesheim (Germany) on September 8th and 9^th, 2017. In the early 11th century Hildesheim was an emerging spiritual, cultural, and administrative hub in the Holy Roman Empire, while in the early 21st century, it epitomizes the discreet charm of a moderately-sized provincial city in the middle of Germany. For our organizing committee from Berlin and Hildesheim¹, hosting the first Occupational Science conference on the European mainland and outside an English-language country presented a welcome opportunity to contribute to recent developments in occupational science. A diversity of new voices is now being heard, as the predominance of anglophone terminology and concepts, research traditions, and scholarly debates has been critically acknowledged (Magalhães, Nayar, Pizarro, & Stanley, 2018). Such critical self-reflection within occupational science discourse as a whole might well be considered a sign of maturing, for a field that can no longer be called ‘emerging’, although its scholarship is increasingly appearing from different geographical locations, cultural contexts, and in different languages.

In fact, the Fourth Occupational Science Europe conference was an exciting one. About 230 participants, who travelled to Hildesheim not only from 13 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), but also from 12 countries beyond (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, South Africa, Syria, USA), created debates on occupation that were enriched by a multitude of perspectives. Live stream techniques, provided for the first time at an OSE conference, enabled virtual participation from a further array of countries such as Croatia, France, and Georgia.

The diversity of the conference programme is reflected in the contributions to this special issue of the Journal of Occupational Science, which address a wide range of issues and methodological approaches, employ various theoretical frameworks, and are concerned with the generation of knowledge as well as its application in practice contexts. Many of the articles challenge normative assumptions about occupation. They represent a plurality of life experiences and perspectives reflected in narrative accounts as well as diverse scholarly, societal, and institutional discourses and practices. Occupation as the common ground from which to view current developments in Europe thus also reflects worldwide developments in societies under the influence of a neo-liberal globalized capitalist economy, which is increasingly challenged by homogenizing tendencies in authoritarian discourses about identity and culture. Following the last JOS special issue on Occupational Science in Europe (Eklund & Erlandsson 2012), this special issue offers a glimpse of contemporary European occupational science research.

Introducing the observations of the three keynote speakers allows us to measure the growth of scholarship and the directions research has taken. In the first keynote speech, Ruth Zemke (2019) moved from the seed for a new science to the “occupational science forests” that have subsequently grown around the globe. Ongoing concerns about the individual as an occupational being, together with more recent questions of occupational justice and social transformation, have broadened the academic foundations of occupational science. Anne Roberts (2019) employed the metaphor of a quilt in her keynote speech, to characterize occupational science in Europe as the result of a dynamic interaction between countries that has led to an evolving, complex, and multidimensional body of scholarship and research, which has benefited from the possibilities for cooperation across national borders facilitated by the political and economic structures of the European Union. Occupational science in Europe, Roberts argued, is more than the sum of its parts. The third keynote speaker, Debbie Laliberte Rudman, contributed a reflection to this special issue on how she experienced the conference as a move towards vital new directions. Using the lens of critical occupational science, she particularly put emphasis on how the diverse perspectives on occupation from across Europe and beyond expressed at the conference can support critical alertness, i.e. a skill that is essential to embracing a critical turn in occupational science and enacting a transformative agenda.

The feature article by Magalhães, Farias, Rivas-Quarneti, Alvares, and Malfitano (2019) suggests ways to promote the development of occupational science outside the Anglophone sphere by strengthening global collaboration. Sessions during two international occupational science conferences highlighted not only the visible and invisible barriers hindering international collaboration but also potential strategies to overcome them. The authors call for an international dialogue that is open to diverse worldviews and supports a multi-faceted understanding of occupation reflecting on the local contexts of enacting occupation and generating knowledge.

The article by Kristensen (2019) outlines current directions of Nordic occupational science in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden through a comparative exploration of research on the Nordic welfare society and the values associated with it. This illuminates how health and social concerns, in particular regarding the value of meaningful occupational engagement in citizens’ everyday lives, are understood in recent research emerging from these countries.

Johansson, Fristedt, Boström, Björklund, and Wagman (2019) draw attention to the occupational challenges faced by citizens from European Union countries such as Latvia, Romania, and Bulgaria begging on the streets in Sweden. Their research adds to a growing body of scholarship arguing for a critical understanding of occupations at the margins of society to enable more diverse, unbiased perspectives on occupation. The occupational needs of this marginalized group, which largely stem from economic and social disparities between EU member states, call for a human rights discourse in occupational science and occupational therapy.

The third contribution from a Nordic country, the feature article by Raanaas, Lund, Sveen, and Asbjørnslett (2019), demonstrates how an occupational science perspective can be employed to gain new insights from research studies the authors had previously performed. In this case, the concept of life transitions combined with theories of self-identity and transaction allowed the authors to suggest how people, situated in a specific context, revise and create new meaning and self-identity through their occupations during expected and unexpected transitions in life.

The article by Schneider, Page and van Nes (2019) is concerned with the occupational transitions accompanying the life courses of transgender persons. The occupational transitions experienced by four German transgender adults during the development of their gender identity in childhood, puberty, and early adulthood were explored by using a narrative approach. The results add to the growing body of literature on the perspectives and experiences of transgender people that allows for a better understanding of the impact of gender on performing occupations.

A narrative approach is also employed by Booth, Rihtman, Leddington, Wright, Taylor, and Price (2019) to capture the occupational perspectives of their research participants. They identify adults with a very tall stature (above the 97^th percentile for height) as a group which had paradoxically been overlooked by occupational science research so far. Their study shows how diversity of stature affects participation in everyday occupations as well as occupational choice: Challenges to occupational engagement and performance in everyday life as well as work-related opportunities and benefits have an influence on the participants’ identity.

In the first of two articles from Austria, which challenge normative assumptions by demonstrating the restrictions of an ableist perspective, Tatzer (2019) uses a narrative-in-action approach to explore how people in long-term care settings with moderate and severe dementia construct their identity and social roles. Narratives, objects, and occupations are understood as an effort of the participants to express their identities, battling cognitive or physical impairments and a confining environment. The author particularly stresses the function of repeated stories, which – in spite of their fragmented nature – should be recognized for their function in identity construction, instead of being merely regarded as a symptom of dementia.

The second study from Austria, by Gappmayer (2019), investigates the influence of neoliberal ideals in care group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities by collecting data through, for example, participant observation in three supervised group homes in Austria. Applying Schatzki’s practice theory to gain an understanding of how society and social values impact on individual occupations, the author highlights the tensions between neoliberal ideals in care and the realization of good care.

El-Qasem (2019) uses reflexive grounded theory methodology combined with elements from systematic metaphor analysis to explore how Palestinians in Jordan, Palestine, and Israel conceptualize and practise oral transmission to pass on historical knowledge of everyday occupations, in order to counter the effects of deculturalization. In a contribution to occupational science terminology, oral transmission is categorized as a meta-occupation that provides the basis for other occupations and, thus, can be seen as a strategy against occupational injustice.

Concluding the feature article section is the paper by Berr, Marotzki, and Schiller (2019), who look at the interrelationship between occupation and identity against the background of forced migration, focussing on the professional biographies of Syrian women living in Germany. Introducing the method of reconstructing narrative identity for the analysis of identity formation processes, their study shows how the individual occupational needs of migrant women in the receiving country can be identified, which helps to increase awareness of barriers and resources.

Boland and Cunningham (2019) characterize their Comment on occupation and homelessness as informed by their own research and experiences in the field, and inspired by participation in the Occupational Science Europe conference. Their suggestions to support occupational participation of homeless persons at the macro, meso, and micro level are based on a call for occupation-focused practice, taking into account the complex context factors that influence the choices and occupations of homeless persons in neoliberal society.

The special issue concludes with two Brief Reports of meetings held as part of the Occupational Science Europe programme. In their report on the 2nd meeting of the Think Tank for Occupation-Based Social Transformation, which was a preconference workshop, the organizers (Laliberte Rudman et al., 2019) describe the formation of the think tank, the methodology, methods, and outcomes of the meeting in Hildesheim, and the development of the international network. Following this, the report by Trimboli, Rivas-Quarneti, Blankvoort, Roosen, Algado and Whiteford (2019) outlines the discussions of the participants of one of the small groups (on “Forced Migrants”) at the think tank, which concerned future directions to guide occupation-centred transformative work with migrants and displaced persons.

The contributions related to the conference are supplemented by a Brief Report on the results of an online survey conducted shortly after the conference by the Occupational Science Europe Research Committee (OSERC), a subsidiary of Occupational Science Europe (OSE). It shows European perceptions regarding the relationship between occupational science and occupational therapy, and reflects on the present state of occupational science research in Europe as well as its implications for the future (Clouston, Avrech Bar, Dür, Jones, Ilper, Kristensen, & Whitcombe, 2019).

This JOS special issue is a valuable contribution to the critical seeds disseminated at the Fourth Occupational Science Europe Conference in Hildesheim. Their growth can already be seen in the activities of various groups and networks, among others the German occupational science group that was founded after the conference. In August 2019, the Fifth Occupational Science Europe Conference in Amsterdam with its theme of “Europe in transition” will continue to provide a platform for scholarly debate to pursue occupation-centred perspectives on social processes under way in Europe and beyond.

Sandra Schiller

Silke Dennhardt

Notes

1. The organizing committee from Germany also comprised Ulrike Marotzki, Katharina Röse and Dorothea Tschaggeny (née Harth).